i(L 


THE  NORTH  AND  THE  SOUTH, 


KEPRINTED 


FROM    THE 


NEW  YORK   TRIBUNE 


NEW   YORK: 
PUBLISHED   AT    THE   OFFICE   OF    THE    TRIBUNE 

1854. 
ft 


LOAN  STACK 


THE  NORTH  AND  THE  SOUTH. 


SLAVERY  AND  THE  UNION. 

IT  seems  to  be  time,  in  view  of  the  circumstances  in  which  the  country  is 
now  placed,  and  of  the  great  controversy  respecting  slavery  revived  by  Pierce 
and  Douglas,  and  their  southern  allies  in  the  extinct  Whig  party  of  the  South, 
the  Badgers,  the  Joneses,  and  the  Claytons — a  controversy  whose  conclusion 
no  man  can  foresee — it  is  time,  we  say,  to  examine  the  point  of  which  the 
South  makes  the  greatest  account,  which  it  constantly  employs  by  way  of  both 
defence  and  offence,  and  without  which,  indeed,  it  would  often  be  difficult  for 
southern  champions  to  have  anything  to  say  at  all.  This  point  is  succinctly 
expressed  in  the  following  extract  from  The  Union,  Past  and  Future,  a 
pamphlet  published  at  Charleston,  in  1850,  widely  circulated  at  the  time,  and 
since  republished,  in  whole  or  in  part,  in  various  other  places  throughout  the 
Southern  States : — 

"  The  North  possesses  none  of  the  material  elements  of  greatness,  in  which  the  South 
abounds,  whether  we  regard  the  productions  of  the  soil,  the  access  to  the  markets  of 
the  world,  or  the  capacity  of  military  defence.  While  the  slave  States  produce  nearly 
everything  within  themselves,  the  free  States  will  soon  depend  oa  them  even  for  food, 
as  they  now  do  for  rice,  sugar,  tobacco,  and  cotton — the  employment  of  their  ships  in 
southern  commerce,  the  employment  of  their  labor  in  the  manufacture  of  southern 
cotton,  and  all  that  they  can  purchase  of  other  countries  with  the  fabrics  of  that  great 
southern  staple.  We  have  shown  that  the  price  of  that  staple  must  be  permanently 
raised ;  how  would  the  manufacturing  industry  of  the  free  States  stand  this  rise,  if 
their  taxes  were  raised  by  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  and  how  would  their  laborers  subsist 
under  this  new  burden,  if  they  at  once  lost  the  employment  afforded  by  the  free  use  of  one 
hundred  and  forty  millions  of  southern  capital,  and  the  disbursement  of  twenty  millions  of 
southern  taxes?  The  answer  to  this  question  will  bring  us  to  the  last  view  we  shall 
present  of  our  subject,  and  will  show  that  the  Union  has,  in  truth,  inestimable  ivorthfor 
the  North.  It  defies  all  the  powers  of  figures  to  calculate  the  value  to  the  free  States 
of  the  conservative  influence  of  the  South  upon  their  social  organization." 

The  Union,  past  and  future  :  how  it  works  and  hoiv  to  save  it. 

Few  ideas  are  more  widely  disseminated  or  more  deeply  seated  among  our 
southern  friends  than  that  which  is  here  inculcated — the  oppression  of  the 
slave-holding  States  for  the  benefit  of  the  free  ones.  Few  errors  are  of  more 
universal  acceptation  than  is  the  belief  throughout  all  the  country  south  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line  that  the  prosperity  of  the  North  is  due  to  its  con 
nection  with  the  South,  and  that  a  continuance  of  that  connection  is  to  the 
former  a  matter  of  absolute  necessity  if  it  would  avoid  returning  to  the 
"original  poverty  and  weakness"  that  must  inevitably  result  from  a  dissolu 
tion  of  the  Union.  To  northern  men,  such  an  event,  as  we  are  told,  would 
be  fatal,  because  it  would  be  followed  by  an  increase  of  taxation,  a  diminished 
demand  for  labor,  and  diminished  power  to  command  the  capital  of  the  South, 
accompanied  by  increased  difficulty  in  finding  freight  for  their  ships,  or  raw 

798 


materials  for  consumption  in  their  factories  and  mills.  To  them,  therefore, 
the  Union  is,  according  to  universal  southern  authority,  "  of  inestimable 
worth  ;"  whereas  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  would,  to  the  South,  be  fraught 
with  blessings.  Once  separated  from  the  North,  says  our  pamphlet — 

"Her  trade  would  revive  and  grow,  like  a  field  of  young  corn,  when  the  long  ex 
pected  showers  descend  after  a  withering  drought.  The  South  now  loses  the  use  of 
some  130  or  140  millions  a  year  of  her  capital,  and  also  pays  to  the  federal  govern 
ment  at  least  26  millions  of  taxes,  23  of  which  are  spent  beyond  her  borders.  This 
great  stream  of  taxation  continually  bears  the  wealth  of  the  South  far  away  on  its 
waves,  and  small  indeed  is  the  portion  which  ever  returns  in  refreshing  clouds  to  re 
plenish  its  sources.  Turn  it  back  to  its  natural  channel,  and  the  South  will  be  relieved 
of  15  millions  of  taxes — to  be  left  where  they  can  be  most  wisely  expended,  in  the 
hands  of  the  payers  ;  and  the  other  1 1  millions  will  furnish  salaries  to  her  people  and 
encouragement  to  her  labor.  Restore  to  her  the  use  of  the  130  or  140  millions  a  year 
of  her  produce  for  the  foreign  trade,  and  all  her  ports  will  throng  with  business. 
Norfolk  and  Charleston  and  Savannah,  so  long  pointed  at  by  the  North  as  a  proof  of 
the  pretended  evils  of  slavery,  will  be  crowded  with  shipping,  and  their  warehouses 
crammed  with  merchandise.  The  use  and  command  of  this  large  capital  would  cut 
canals;  it  would  build  roads  and  tunnel  mountains,  and  drive  the  iron  horse  through 
the  remotest  valleys,  till  '  the  desert  should  blossom  like  the  rose.' " 

Four  years  have  now  elapsed  since  the  publication  of  this  pamphlet,  and 
with  each  and  every  day  of  those  years,  these  ideas  have  obtained  stronger 
hold  on  the  southern  mind,  until  at  length  we  find  them  now  repeated  from 
every  quarter  of  the  slave-holding  States.  In  all,  the  continuance  of  the 
Union  is  now  regarded  as  the  one  great  necessity  of  the  North — as  the  con 
dition  of  its  existence  as  a  thriving  and  prosperous  community.  All  that 
northern  people  desire,  as  we  are  told  by  the  Charleston  Mercury,  is  "  power 
and  gain/'  and  to  secure  these  they  must  cling  to  the  Union  as  the  sheet- 
anchor  of  all  their  hopes.  With  the  South,  on  the  contrary,  the  great  neces 
sity  is  dissolution,  and  if  the  Union  is  to  be  maintained  it  can  be  so  only  on 
condition  that  southern  men  shall  be  the  masters  of  its  policy,  both  external 
and  internal.  The  North  may  wince,  but  it  must  submit.  Even  now,  on 
account  of  the  Nebraska  Bill, 

"  They  threaten  us,"  says  the  Mercury,  "with  a  great  northern  party,  and  a  general 
war  upon  the  South.  If  they  were  not  mere  hucksters  in  politics — with  only  this  pe 
culiarity,  that  every  man  offers  himself,  instead  of  some  other  commodity,  for  sale — 
we  should  surmise  that  they  might  do  what  they  threaten,  and  thus  bring  out  the  real 
triumph  of  the  South,  by  making  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  necessary. 

"But  they  will  do  no  such  thing.  They  will  bluster  and  utter  a  world  of  swelling 
self-glorification,  and  end  by  knocking  themselves  down  to  the  highest  bidder.  To  be 
sure,  if  they  could  make  the  best  bargain  by  destroying  the  South,  they  would  set 
about  it  without  delay.  But  they  cannot.  They  live  upon  us,  and  the  South  affords 
them  the  double  gratification  of  an  object  for  hatred,  and  a  field  for  plunder.  How  far 
they  may  be  moved  to  carry  their  indignation  at  this  time,  it  is  impossible  to  say  ; 
but  we  may  be  sure  they  will  cool  off  just  at  the  point  where  they  discover  that  they 
can  make  nothing  more  out  of  it,  and  may  lose." 

"The  real  triumph  of  the  South"  would,  as  we  are  here  told,  be  found  in 
the  adoption  by  the  North  of  such  a  course  of  policy  as  would  make  "  a  disso 
lution  of  the  Union  necessary."  Therefore,  the  South  may  demand  what  it 
pleases,  and  the  North  must  yield  all  that  is  demanded,  on  penalty  of  separa 
tion.  "It  is  sufficient  reason,"  says  the  Columbia  Times,  "for  demanding 
the  passage  of  the  Nebraska  Bill,  that  it  excites  the  hostility  of  abolitionists 
and  free  soilers."  That  it  does  so  is  regarded  as  evidence  that  the  measure 
"  is  right  and  proper,  and  therefore  to  be  supported."  Let  the  North  fume 
and  fret,  it  dare  not  dissolve  that  Union  to  which  it  is  indebted  for  all  its 
"power  and  gain."  We  make  another  quotation  from  the  Charleston 
pamphlet,  as  follows  : — 


"The  fall  of  wages,"  as  we  are  assured,  "  would  be  heavy  and  instantaneous  were 
the  Union  dissolved,  for  that  event  would,  as  we  have  shown,  not  only  throw  20  mil 
lions  of  dollars  of  new  taxes  upon  the  North,  but  would  withdraw  140  millions  of 
capital  which  now  employs  her  labor.  This  loss  would  fall  chiefly,  if  not  entirely, 
upon  wages.  The  northern  capitalist  would  not  submit  to  a  decrease  of  profit,  but 
would  send  a  part  of  his  capital  to  the  South,  where  profits  were  higher,  until  he  had 
reduced  wages  at  home  to  a  point  which  would  leave  him  nearly  as  much  clear  gain 
on  his  industry  as  before.  He  would  in  this  way  escape  the  whole  burden  of  the  new 
taxes,  and  throw  it  upon  labor." 

Northern  politicians  repeat  this  doctrine,  assuring  their  fellow-citizens  that 
safety  and  prosperity  are  indissolubly  connected  with  the  maintenance  of  the 
Union.  That  it  may  be  maintained,  slavery  must  be  tolerated  in  all  the  terri 
tory  open  to  settlement  and  organization.  If  this  be  not  done,  the  South,  as 
we  are  assured,  will  secede.  Some  of  these  politicians,  "  for  the  sake  of  can 
dor/'  admit  that,  but  a  few  years  since,  they  did  desire  to  preserve  a  portion 
of  the  common  territory  exempt  from  slavery;  but,  as  they  assure  their 
southern  friends,  they  are  now  most  penitent,  and  gladly  admit  the  error  of 
their  former  course.  "Thank  God,  we  failed!"  was  the  pious  exclamation  of 
one  of  these  gentlemen  recently  before  the  Senate,  waiting  confirmation  in  the 
honorable  office  of  Charge  d' Affaires  to  Portugal.  Anxious  to  earn  his  office, 
he  gladly  proclaimed  his  penitence.  Had  ice  succeeded,  as  he  told  his  coun 
trymen,  the  South  would  have  seceded  from  the  Union.  Such  was  the  cry 
in  1820 ;  such  was  it  in  1830;  such  was  it  in  1850.  Such  it  now  is,  and 
such  it  will  be  when  the  South  shall  demand  the  repeal  of  all  the  laws  which 
prevent  the  introduction  of  slaves,  as  such,  into  the  free  States,  and  those 
other  laws  by  which  the  African  slave-trade  is  prohibited,  and  all  concerned 
in  it  are  declared  pirates.  The  proverb  tells  us  that,  "little  by  little  the  bird 
builds  its  nest."  Those  who  will  study  the  course  of  proceeding  from  the 
days  of  Jefferson  and  Madison,  to  the  present  time,  will  scarcely  fail  to  see 
that  the  nest  has  been  built  "  little  by  little"  until  it  has  arrived  almost  at 
the  point  of  completion — that  it  now  needs  little  more  than  to  be  finished 
by  the  passage  of  a  brief  law  declaring  that  slaves  may  be  purchased  any 
where  and  carried  everywhere — and  that,  "  to  this  complexion  we  must  come 
at  last,"  if,  as  southern  and  northern  politicians  now  unite  to  assure  us,  a 
continuance  of  the  union  is  to  the  people  of  the  North  a  matter  of  absolute 
necessity. 

More  than  thirty  years  since,  southern  men  commenced  their  threats  of 
dissolution.  More  than  thirty  years  northern  men  have  been  engaged  in 
"saving  the  Union,"  and  to  accomplish  that  object  they  have  not  only  yielded 
all  that  has  been  claimed,  but  have  crouched  before  the  men  that  spurned 
them.  Throughout  all  that  period  they  have,  to  use  the  words  of  the 
Charleston  Courier,  exhibited  the  "base  cupidity  and  servile  truckling  and 
subserviency  to  the  South,"  which,  as  that  journal  informs  its  readers,  pre 
vail  "almost  universally"  throughout  the  northern  States,  and  with  what 
result  ?  For  an  answer  to  this  question  we  refer  our  readers  to  the  following 
comments  upon  the  Rev.  Mr.  Parker's  recent  discourse  which,  as  the  Courier 
assures  its  southern  readers — 

"  Truthfully,  as  well  as  strongly,  detail  and  depict  the  various  occasions  on  which 
southern  interests  have  obtained  the  mastery  in  Congress,  or,  at  least,  important  ad 
vantages,  which  are  well  worthy  the  consideration  of  all  who  erroneously  suppose  that  the 
action  of  the  general  government  has  been,  on  the  ichole,  adverse  to  slavery.  The  truth  is, 
that  our  government,  although  hostile,  in  its  incipiency,  to  domestic  slavery,  and 
starting  into  political  being  with  a  strong  bent  towards  abolition,  yet  afterwards  so 
changed  its  policy  that  its  action,  for  the  most  part,  and  with  only  a  few  exceptions, 
has  fostered  the  slaveholding  interest,  and  swelled  it  from  six  to  fifteen  States,  and 
from  a  feeble  and  sparse  population  to  one  of  ten  millions." 


6 

Harsh  as  this  may  sound  to  northern  ears,  it  is  yet  most  true,  and  it  affords 
to  its  southern  author  full  warrant  for  complimenting  "  the  sons  of  the  South" 
upon  their  unwavering  "fidelity  to  their  own  interests,"  real,  or  supposed. 
What,  however,  shall  we  say  of  the  sons  of  the  North— the  "  hucksters  in 
politics,"  always  ready,  as  the  Mercury  assures  us,  to  "knock  themselves 
down  to  the  highest  bidder"  for  northern  men  with  southern  principles  ?  Can 
we  say  of  them  other  than  that  their  cause  has  generally  been  marked  by 
"  cupidity,  truckling,  and  subserviency  to  the  South,"  by  aid  of  which  the 
latter  has  acquired  a  degree  of  control  over  the  operations  of  the  Union  never 
contemplated  by  the  men  who  framed  the  Constitution  ? 

Sixty-five  years  since,  at  the  date  of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  there 
existed  throughout  the  Union  scarcely  any  difference  of  opinion  on  the  question 
of  slavery.  Washington  and  Adams,  Jefferson  and  Franklin,  Hamilton  and 
;  Madison,  Jay,  Randolph,  and  Pinckney,  all  equally  regarded  it  as  a  blight  and 
a  curse,  to  be  exterminated  at  as  early  a  period  as  was  consistent  with  proper 
regard  for  the  interests  of  those  by  whom  the  slaves  were  held.  The  policy  of 
the  government  then  inaugurated  tended,  as  the  Courier  informs  its  readers, 
"  towards  abolition. "^/Twenty  years  later,  the  same  opinions  were  still  held 
by  southern  men,  as  was  shown  by  the  debates  in  Congress  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  in  the  territory  of  Indiana.  The  war  of  1812,  directed  by  Madison 
and  Monroe,  was  emphatically  a  war  of  the  southern  and  middle  States,  hav 
ing  for  one  of  its  objects  an  enlargement  of  the  free  territory  of  the  Union. 
Virginia  did  not  then  object  to  the  annexation  of  Canada,  but  at  that  time 
none  had  yet  undertaken  to  prove  slavery  among  the  people  to  be  required  for 
the  establishment  of  perfect  freedom  among  their  masters.  None  had  then 
undertaken  to  show  that  "  the  love  of  true  liberty  and  manly  independence 
of  thought"  could  exist  in  no  communities  except  those  in  which  men,  their 
wives,  and  their  children  were  bought  and  sold  like  cattle  in  the  market.  The 
discovery  of  this  great  political  truth  was  reserved  for  the  generation  that  has 
succeeded  the  one  which  gave  to  the  world  such  men  as  Washington;  Jeffer 
son,  and  Madison. 

That,  in  the  outset,  the  tendencies  of  the  nation  were  "  towards  abolition," 
is  most  true.  Equally  true  is  it  that  for  the  last  thirty  years  they  have  been 
in  the  opposite  direction,  and,  in  so  asserting,  the  Courier  is  sustained  by  facts. 
With  difficulty  the  territory  north  and  west  of  Missouri  was  secured  to  the 
free  States  as  their  share  of  the  Louisiana  purchase.  Since  then,  Florida  has 
been  purchased  by  the  Union  for  the  South,  and  Texas  has  been  purchased 
by  the  Union  for  the  South.  At  the  cost  of  an  expensive  war,  made'  ~by  the 
South,  and  for  Southern  objects,  a  portion  of  the  Mexican  territory  has  been 
added  to  the  Union,  and  nothing  but  "  squatter  sovereignty"  secured  any 
part  of  it  to  the  occupation  of  Northern  men.  Cuba  is  now  to  be  purchased, 
at  the  cost  of  a  hundred  millions,  for  the  South.  The  Gadsden  treaty,  at  a 
cost  of  twenty  millions,  secures  more  territory  for  the  South. 

What,  in  all  this  time,  has  been  purchased  for  the  North  ?  Nothing !  Not 
even  a  foot  of  land  !  When  we  had  a  dispute  with  England  about  the  bound 
aries  of  Maine,  that  State  was  left  to  compromise  as  best  she  could.  When 
the  boundaries  of  Texas  were  to  be  settled,  an  army  was  sent  to  the  State, 
and,  when  collision  had  been  thus  produced,  war  was  declared  "  to  exist ;" 
and  that  war  was  prosecuted  until  we  had  spent  almost  a  hundred  millions, 
and  had  added  a  vast  amount  of  territory  on  the  south-western  side  of  the 
Union.  At  the  North  all  is  different.  Canada,  and  the  other  British  pos 
sessions,  with  their  two  and  a  half  millions  of  people,  would  not  be  admitted 
into  the  Union  were  they  to  offer  themselves  free  of  cost;  nor  dare  any 


(11 


Northern  politician  even  hint  at  the  idea,  because  it  would  ruin  him  with  the 
South.  The  area  of  slavery  must  be  enlarged  at  any  cost,  but  that  of  freedom 
must  not,  even  when  it  can  be  done  with  profit  to  ourselves.  Worse,  however, 
than  this,  the  North  dares  not  even  recognize  the  existence  of  freedom  in  any 
community  the  members  of  which  are  suspected  of  having  African  blood  in 
their  veins.  We  can  have  no  commercial  treaty  with  the  people  of  Hayti, 
because  they  are  black,  and  are  not  liable  to  be  seized  and  sold.  We  dare  not 
recognize  the  Republic  of  Liberia,  lest  it  might  offend  the  South.  Look  where 
we  may,  the  South  dictates  the  policy  of  the  whole  Union,  the  action  of 
whose  government  has,  as  the  Courier  correctly  assures  its  readers,  "  fostered 
the  slave-holding  interests,  and  swelled  it  from  six  to  fifteen  States,"  and  now 
proposes  to  swell  it  still  further,  by  repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise  and 
purchasing  Cuba.  >  »-*£  - 

Has  this  policy  tended  to  cement  the  bonds  of  union  ?  It  would  seem 
not;  for,  while  the  great  mass  of  the  American  people,  north  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line,  have  remained  fast  and  firm  in  the  faith  of  Washington,  Jeffer 
son,  and  Madison,  and  have  carried  their  ideas  into  practical  effect  by  abolish 
ing  slavery,  those  south  of  the  line  have  been  gradually  taking  up  a  new  faith, 
which  teaches  that  the  relation  of  master  and  slave  is  of  divine  origin,  and  is 
to  be  maintained  now  and  for  evermore.  "  Divine  Providence,  for  its  own 
high  and  inscrutable  purposes/'  has,  as  we  are  told  by  the  Charleston 
pamphleteer — 

"Provided  the  whites  of  the  Anglo-Norman  race  in  the  Southern  States  with  the 
necessary  means  of  unexampled  prosperity,  with  that  slave  labor,  without  which,  as  a 
general  rule,  no  colonization  in  a  new  country  ever  has  or  ever  will  thrive  and  grow 
rapidly ;  it  has  given  them  a  distinct  and  inferior  race  to  fill  a  position  equal  to  their 
highest  capacity,  which,  in  less  fortunate  countries,  is  occupied  by  the  whites  them 
selves." 

To  preserve  this  state  of  things,  and  maintain  the  existing  "  domestic  insti 
tutions"  of  the  South,  is,  as  the  same  writer  informs  us,  one  of  the  chief 
duties  of  government,  and  a  system,  based  upon  such  institutions  "  becomes 
instinct  with  life  and  healthy  vigor."  "Public  opinion/'  then,  as  he  says, 
"  works  in  its  true  calling,  as  the  moderator,  not  the  silencer  of  individual 
differences  /'  and  a  community  thus  established  presents,  as  Mr.  Calhoun  was 
accustomed  to  assure  his  friends,  the  most  perfect  form  of  society  the  world 
has  ever  yet  seen.  It  is  under  such  circumstances  that  we  are  to  find  the 
highest  organization,  and  for  this,  as  we  are  told  by  our  pamphleteer — 

"  The  Southern  States  have  peculiar,  and  wellnigh  indispensable  advantages  in 
their  slave  institutions,  which  forever  obliterate  the  division  between  labor  and  capi 
tal." 

We  see  thus  that  the  North  and  the  South  are  steadily  moving  in  opposite 
directions ;  the  one  becoming  more  averse  to  slavery,  and  the  other  more 
enamored  of  it.  Differences  in  the  modes  of  thought  increase  from  day  to  day. 
Southern  men  now  require  Southern  school-books  for  their  children,  and 
Southern  teachers  for  themselves.  The  ties  that  once  united  the  different 
sections  of  the  great  Methodist  Association  have  been  broken,  and  already,  in 
other  churches,  there  are  differences  that  must  eventually  lead  to  separation. 
Southern  planters  seek  to  have  Southern  conventions,  and  decline  to  attend 
those  to  which  are  invited  the  agriculturists  of  the  Union.  Southern  com 
mercial  conventions  are  held  with  a  view  to  measures  for  avoiding  Northern 
cities.  Southern  political  conventions  precede  the  dissolution  of  the  ties  which 
formerly  connected  Southern  and  Northern  Whigs,  and  Southern  and  Northern 
Democrats.  From  year  to  year  the  tendency,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  is  to- 


8 

wards  sectionalism ;  and  such  being  the  case,  there  would  seem  now  to  be 
some  propriety  in  examining  how  far  the  Northern  States  depend  upon  the 
South  for  their  prosperity  and  their  existence,  and  how  far  the  menace  of  dis 
union,  supposing  it  is  earnestly  meant  and  may  really  be  carried  out,  ought 
to  be  regarded  by  them  with  anxiety  or  alarm.  That  question  we  shall  take 
an  early  occasion  to  consider. 


RELATIVE  POWER  OF  THE  NORTH  ANJD  THE  SOUTH. 

North  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  of  the  Ohio,  and  of  the  Missouri  line, 
there  are  fifteen  States,  in  all  of  which  slavery  is  prohibited.  South  of  Mary 
land  and  Missouri  there  are  twelve  States  in  which  slavery  is  regarded  as  a 
blessing.  Between  these  two  great  blocks  of  States  lie  three  whose  position 
it  is  required  here  to  examine,  to  wit : — 

Free  population.        Slave.  Total. 

Delaware 87,719          2,688  90,407 

Maryland 485,946         89,204         575,150 

Missouri  . 605,140        87,767        692,907 

Total 1,178,805       179,659     1,358,464 

Slavery  exists  in  all  of  these,  but  the  proportion  of  slaves  to  free  is,  as  our 
readers  see,  but  little  more  than  one  to  seven.  The  tendencies  of  the  majority 
must,  therefore,  be  in  the  direction  of  a  Northern  Union,  and  their  interests 
carry  them  necessarily  towards  the  North.  Maryland  is  fast  becoming  a 
mining  and  manufacturing  State,  and  the  policy  of  the  North  favors  diversifica 
tion  of  employment,  and  thus  furnishes  a  market  for  coal  and  iron  that  cannot 
be  obtained  in  the  South.  Baltimore  has  a  large  trade  with  the  West,  and  the 
largest  portion  of  it,  that  which  she  has  made  the  greatest  efforts  to  secure,  lies 
north  of  the  Ohio;  and  it  is  in  that  quarter  augmentation  is  most  rapid.  Her 
slaves  are  few  in  number,  and,  in  the  event  of  separation,  she  would  have  the 
guarantee  of  the  North  for  their  possession  during  the  period  of  preparation 
for  gradual  and  quiet  emancipation;  whereas,  were  she  in  a  Southern  Union, 
but  few  would  remain  at  the  close  of  a  single  year  from  the  date  of  separation 
from  Pennsylvania.  Her  union  with  the  North  is  one,  therefore,  not  to  be 
dissolved;  and  Delaware,  of  course,  accompanies  her,  and  becomes  a  part  of 
the  Northern  Union.  So,  too,  with  Missouri.  Her  interests  look  eastward, 
and  not  southward.  Railroads  are  rapidly  uniting  her  with  the  cities  of  the 
Atlantic  coast.  Her  farmers  and  miners  look  eastward  for  a  market  for  their 
products.  Her  chief  city  looks  westward  and  northward,  and  not  southward, 
for  its  trade.  Her  slaves  are  few  in  number,  and  cannot  be  retained  if  Iowa 
and  Illinois  constitute  a  portion  of  another  Union.  It  may,  therefore,  be 
regarded  as  absolutely  certain  that,  in  the  event  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union, 
these  three  States  will  remain  connected  with  the  North.  What  would  be  the 
course  of  Kentucky  and  Western  Virginia  it  is  somewhat,  though  we  think 
not  very  much,  more  difficult  to  determine.  Both  would  have  very  strong 
reasons  for  pursuing  the  same  course  with  Maryland  and  Missouri ;  but  for  the 
present  we  will  assume  that  they  will  go  with  the  South,  and  that  the  following 
is  the  proper  classification  of  the  States : — 

In  the  North  are — New  England,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
Delaware,  Maryland,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Iowa, 
California,  and  Minnesota,  now  soon  to  become  a  State.  In  the  South — 


9 

Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  Georgia,  Florida,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Alabama, 
Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  Texas. 

States.  Free  population.  Slave.  Total. 

North  ...     20       14,800,000  178,000         14,978,000 

South   ...     12        5,200,000        3,000,000          8,200,000 

Such  were  the  proportions  at  the  date  of  the  census  now  nearly  four  years 
old ;  but  since  then  they  have  been  materially  changed.  The  vast  immigration 
of  the  last  four  years,  coupled  with  the  natural  increase,  must  have  swelled  the 
population  of  the  Northern  set  of  States  to  little  less  than  seventeen  and  a  half 
millions;  while  the  natural  increase,  and  a  small  immigration,  have  probably 
carried  the  number  in  the  Southern  one  to  nine  millions.  The  total  population 
of  the  Union  in  1840  was  scarcely  greater  than  is  that  of  the  States  which,  in 
a  sectional  division,  must  constitute  the  North. 

It  is  charged  that  the  North  lives  upon  the  South,  that  its  prosperity  results 
from  the  vast  trade  furnished  by  the  South,  and  that  it  could  not  prosper  if 
separated  from  the  South;  and  these  are  the  charges  it  is  proposed  now  to 
examine.  If  they  are  well  founded,  and  if  the  North  owes  to  its  Southern 
connection  all  its  "power  and  gain,"  it  may  be  well  to  submit  to  all  the  de 
mands  of  the  South  "rather  than  return  to  their  natural  poverty  and  weakness 
by  dissolving  the  Union;"  but,  before  doing  this,  it  would  be  well  to  be  assured 
that  the  facts  are  really  so.  We  believe  they  are  not,  and  are  disposed  to  think 
that  our  readers  will,  at  the  close  of  the  examination,  agree  with  us  in  this 
belief. 

The  "gain"  from  a  customer  is  dependent  altogether  on  his  power  to  pur 
chase  ;  and  this  is,  in  its  turn,  dependent  on  his  power  to  sell.  The  man  who 
sells  his  day's  labor  for  a  dollar  cannot  be  a  customer  to  the  storekeeper  to  a 
greater  extent  than  a  dollar  per  day.  The  farmer  who  has  only  100  bushels 
of  wheat  to  sell  cannot  purchase  more  than  the  value  of  those  bushels.  The 
planter  who  has  but  twenty  bales  of  cotton  to  sell  cannot  purchase  more  goods 
than  they  will  pay  for.  So  is  it  with  communities.  Their  power  to  purchase 
is  limited  by  their  power  to  sell.  Such  being  the  case,  it  would  seem  to  be 
obvious  that  trade  among  the  people  of  the  North  must  be  of  vastly  greater 
extent  than  among  those  of  the  South.  In  the  latter,  labor  is  not  held  in  honor 
among  white  men,  and  slaves,  as  is  well  known,  do  but  little  work.  Under 
such  circumstances,  we  might,  we  think,  fairly  assume  that  the  efficiency  of 
Southern  labor  was  not  more  than  half  as  much  per  head  as  that  of  Northern 
labor;  and,  if  so,  as  the  population  of  the  Northern  section  is  almost  double 
that  of  the  Southern  one,  it  would  follow  that  the  productive  power  of  the 
North  was  four  times  greater  than  that  of  the  South;  and  that  it  is  not  only 
so,  but  that  the  difference  is  even  greater  than  this,  can,  as  we  think,  readily 
be  established.  Commencing  with  the  agricultural  productions,  we  offer  our 
readers  the  following  facts  derived  from  the  census,  begging  them,  once  for  all, 
to  remark  that,  in  the  statements  we  shall  furnish,  the  division  between  the 
North  and  South  will  be  made  in  conformity  with  that  of  States  and  popu 
lation  given  above : — » 

Northern  States.  Southern  States. 

Wheat bushels     80,000,000  20,000,000 

Barley  and  rye      ...         "          17,000,000  1,000,000 

Oats «        105,000,000  45,000,000 

Buckwheat «  9,000,000 

Indian  corn      ....         "        294,000,000  298,000,000 


10 


Potatoes  (white  and  sweet) 
Rice              

it 
tons 

Northern  States. 
62,000,000 

Southern  States. 
12,000,000 
100,000 

Cotton                              • 

u 

500,000 

Hay  . 

u 

13,000,000 

1,000,000 

Butter  and  cheese 
Hemp     

tt 
tt 

182,000 
16,500 

27,000 
18,500 

Wool                      ... 

pounds 

42,000,000 

10,000,000 

Flax  

it 

4,000,000 

4,000,000 

Tobacco            .... 

a 

53,000,000 

146,000,000 

u 

4,000,000 

Beeswax  and  honey    .     . 
Maple  sugar     .... 
Cane       "         .... 

tt 
u 
tt 

gallons 

14,000,000 
32,000,000 

1,000,000 

700,000 
2,000,000 
247,000,000 
12,000,000 

Orchard  &  garden  products 
Animals  slaughtered  .     . 

dollars 
tt 

12,000,000 
62,000,000 

2,000,000 
47,000,000 

An  examination  of  the  above  can  scarcely  fail  to  satisf}7  our  readers  that  it 
is  exceedingly  inaccurate  and  unfavorable  to  the  North.  The  export  of  animal 
food  from  the  region  north  and  west  of  the  Ohio  is  twice,  if  not  thrice  greater 
than  that  from  the  region  south  and  east  of  it;  while  the  quantity  consumed 
n  the  North  must  be  six  times  greater.  Such  is  the  case,  too,  with  orchard 
and  garden  produce.  A  single  cent  per  day,  per  head,  expended  by  the  people 
of  New  York,  Brooklyn,  and  Philadelphia,  would  amount  to  over  four  millions 
of  dollars,  or  one-third  of  the  whole  amount  here  set  down  for  a  population  of 
fifteen  millions  of  people.  The  cause  of  error  at  the  North  is,  as  we  think, 
readily  seen.  Where  there  are  thousands  of  small  proprietors,  from  each  of 
whom  a  statement  is  to  be  obtained,  the  difficulty  is  far  greater  than  when  a 
single  person  represents  a  family  of  one,  two,  or  three  hundred  hands,  all  of 
whose  products  go  into  one  common  treasury.  Admitting,  however,  the  re 
turns  to  be  correct,  we  will  now  furnish  a  comparative  view  of  the  products  of 
the  two  different  sections  of  the  Union. 

The  northern  excess  of  hay  is  12  millions  of  tons,  and  the  southern  pro 
duct  of  cotton  and  rice  is  600,000  tons,  or  one-twentieth  as  much  in  quantity. 
The  average  value  of  the  latter  commodities  being  less  than  twenty  times  the 
average  of  the  former,  it  follows  that  the  hay  more  than  counterbalances  the 
cotton  and  the  rice.  Hemp,  flax  and  corn,  as  the  reader  sees,  balance  each 
other.  Leaving  these,  then,  out  of  view,  we  have  the  following  excesses : — 


NORTH. 


SOUTH. 


Wheat    ....     60,000,000  bush. 

Tobacco 

Rye  and  barley      .     16,000,000     " 

Sugar    . 

Oats        ....     60,000,000     « 

Molasses 

Buckwheat  .     .     .       9,000,000     " 

Potatoes      .     .     .     50,000,000     " 

Butter  and  cheese          155,000  tons. 

Wool      ....     32,000,000  Ibs. 

Beeswax  and  hay  .     13,000,000    " 

Orchard    and   gar 

den  products      .  $10,000,000 

93,000,000  Ibs. 
217,000,000  « 
11,000,000  gal. 


Animals  slaughtered  $15,000,000 


Value,  $195,000,000 


Value,  $22,000,000 


11 

The  total  value  of  the  principal  products  of  southern  agriculture,  for  that 
year,  is  thus  given  in  De  Bow's  Review,  3d  series,  vol.  ii.  p.  141 : — 

Exported.         Home  Consumption.     Total  Products. 


Cotton       .     . 

$71,984,616 

$33,615,384 

$105,600,000 

Tobacco     .     . 

9,951,223 

5,048,777 

15,000,000 

Ilice 

2,631,887 

400,000 

3,031,887 

Naval  stores   . 

1,142,713 

800,000 

1,942,713 

Sugar    . 

23,037 

12,396,150 

12,419,187 

Hemp   .     . 

5,633 

690,207 

695,840 

Total,          $85,739,109        $52,950,518        $138,689,627 

The  average  value  of  Indian  corn  for  that  year  is  given  at  45  cents;  but 
the  distance  from  market  and  the  difficulty  of  communication  throughout  the 
South,  reduce  it  below  this  average.  If  we  take  it  at  33  cents  per  bushel, 
we  shall  probably  be  in  excess  of  the  truth,  and  this  would  give  for  the  whole 

Southern  crop $98,000,000 

Add  to  this  for  the  animals  slaughtered    ....  47,000,000 

For  the  other  products  of  agriculture       ....  50,000,000 

And  we  obtain  the  total  value  of  agricultural  products       .       $333,689,627 
If  we  now  add  to  this,  for  manufactures  and  for  the  product 

of  labor  in  all  other  pursuits,  one-half  of  this  amount,  say       $166,310,373 

"We  obtain  as  the  total  southern  product,  exclusive  of  the 
negroes  raised,  which  constitute  so  important  an  item  of 
1    southern  produce        .      ,  *  , $500,000,000 

This,  we  think,  is  rather  in  excess  of  the  truth,  but  if  true,  it  would  give 
an  average  product  of  about  sixty  dollars  per  head. 

In  comparing  with  this  the  northern  product,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  northern  farmer  is,  in  most  cases,  much  nearer  market,  and  always  pro 
vided  with  much  better  means  of  intercourse.  The  corn  that  is  worth,  in 
Texas,  fifteen  cents,  becomes  worth  sixty  cents  by  the  time  it  reaches  Massa 
chusetts,  and  the  farmer  of  the  latter  obtains  as  much  for  one  bushel  as  the 
farmer  of  the  former  obtains  for  four ;  and  this  is  true,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  with  reference  to  all  the  products  of  agriculture.  The  prices  of  cot 
ton,  tobacco,  rice,  &c.  above  given,  are  their  prices  at  the  ports  from  which 
they  are  exported,  and  include  all  charges  up  to  the  time  of  shipment,  even 
to  warehouse  rent  and  broker's  commission  on  the  sale. 

To  make  a  fair  comparison  of  the  agricultural  operations  of  the  two  sections, 
it  would  be  required  to  pursue  a  similar  course  with  the  North,  taking  the 
value  of  their  products  at  the  place  of  sale  ;  and  were  this  done,  it  would  be 
found  that  the  excess  in  that  was  so  far  greater  than  in  quantity  that  it 
would  be  safe  to  estimate  its  agricultural  production  at  much  more  than 
double  the  amount  above  given  for  the  South,  or  at  least  $900,000,000, 
making  a  total  somewhat  exceeding  $1,200,000,000. 

The  South,  however,  makes  its  exchanges  but  once  in  a  year,  while  at  the 
North,  because  of  the  proximity  of  markets,  exchanges  are  repeated  from 
month  to  month,  throughout  the  year.  The  market-gardener  furnishes  cab 
bages  and  potatoes,  peas  and  beans,  to  the  man  who  converts  them  into  coal. 
Thence  they  go,  as  coal,  to  another,  who  converts  them  into  pig-iron;  thence 
to  the  rolling-mill,  whence  they  come  out  as  bars;  thence  to  the  shops  from 


12 

which  they  come  out  as  axes,  spades,  ploughs,  or  steam-engines ;  and  thus 
there  is  a  constant  and  unceasing  motion  in  the  produce  of  the  North,  and 
from  this  motion  come  the  "power  and  gain/'  which  by  our  southern  friends 
are  attributed  to  the  Union.  The  manufactures  of  Massachusetts  amount  to 
not  less  than  $150,000,000.  Her  shoe  manufacture  alone  is  37,000,000. 
Those  of  the  city  of  New  York,  in  1850,  amounted  to  $105,000,000,  and 
those  of  Philadelphia  were  fully  equal,  and  probably  greater.  Those  of  Cin 
cinnati  were  $40,000,000.  Pittsburg  and  Cincinnati  must  now  considerably 
exceed  a  hundred  millions.  At  the  present  time  they  are  all  very  far  greater  in 
amount.  The  iron  trade,  in  its  various  departments,  from  the  smelting  of  the 
ore  to  the  finishing  of  the  steam-engine,  cannot  be  estimated  at  the  present 
time  at  less  than  $130,000,000,  nor  the  coal  trade  at  less  than  $20,000,000  j 
the  manufacture  of  ships  is  more  than  $20,000,000;  books,  newspapers,  maga 
zines,  and  engravings,  amount  to  many  millions.  Add  to  the  infinite  quantity 
of  manufactures  scattered  throughout  New  England,  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
and  other  northern  States,  the  mining  of  lead  and  copper,  the  enormous  pro 
duct  of  lumber,  the  ice  trade,  the  production  of  houses,  and  the  quantity  of 
labor  and  manure  applied  to  the  improvement  of  land,  while  the  South  is  every 
where  exhausting  its  soil ;  and  it  will  readily  be  seen  how  enormous  is  the 
production  of  the  North  as  compared  with  that  of  the  South.  The  earnings 
of  canals,  canal  boats,  and  railroads  are  $80,000,000;  and  if  we  estimate  the 
value  of  the  property  carried  at  only  ten  times  the  cost  of  transportation,  we 
obtain  $800,000,000.  The  tonnage  of  the  North  is  little  short  of  four  mil 
lions,  almost  half  a  million  of  which  is  moved  by  steam ;  and  if  we  take  the 
gross  earnings  of  this  at  only  one  dollar  per  ton,  per  month,  we  have  nearly 
fifty  millions,  but  they  are  probably  considerably  above  a  hundred  millions. 
The  net  value  of  the  property  transported  on  the  lakes  and  rivers,  by  canals, 
in  coasters,  and  on  railroads,  is  estimated  by  Mr.  Andrews,  in  his  Report  on 
the  Colonial  and  Lake  Trade  (p.  905),  at  $3,120,000,000 ;  but  a  very  small 
proportion  of  which,  as  our  readers  have  seen,  comes  from  the  South. 

We  here  conclude  for  to-day  our  survey  of  these  impressive  and  eloquent 
facts.  We  think  our  readers  will  agree  that  they  show  that  the  North  is 
very  powerful,  and  the  South  comparatively  very  weak,  and  that  if  either  has 
reason  to  dread  the  day  of  dissolution  it  is  that  which  is  oppressed  and  debili 
tated  by  the  curse  of  slavery.  We  shall  next  compare  the  effect  of  separation 
upon  the  commercial  relations  of  the  two  sections. 


THE  COMMERCE  OF  NORTH  AND  SOUTH. 

Seven  years  since,  Mr.  Walker  estimated  the  total  product  of  labor  at 
$3,000,000,000.  Since  then,  the  population  has  increased  at  least  twenty- 
five  per  cent.,  and  if  the  product  had  increased  only  in  the  same  rate,  it  would 
now  be  3,750,000,000.  Estimating  it,  however,  at  only  $3,250,000,000, 
and  that  of  the  South  at  $500,000,000,  we  should  have,  as  the  product  of  the 
North,  $2,750,000,000,  or  about  $180  per  head,  and  this  is  certainly  not  in 
excess  of  the  truth. 

We  ourselves  believe  that  this  view  is  in  a  high  degree  unfavorable  to  the 
North,  and  such,  we  think,  will  be  the  opinion  of  all  our  readers  who  reflect 
to  what  a  wonderful  extent  northern  labor  is  aided  by  machinery,  and  to  how 
small  an  extent  that  is  the  case  with  the  South.  A  steam-engine  capable  of 
doing  the  work  of  twenty  slaves  can  be  purchased  for  the  price  of  a  single  one, 
and  fed  at  less  cost  than  the  single  laborer.  Steam-engines  count  by  tens  of 


13 

thousands,  and  the  work  performed  by  them  is  probably  equal  to  the  whole 
labor-power  of  the  South.  At  the  North  human  labor  is  everywhere  econo 
mised,  while  at  the  South  it  is  everywhere  wasted.  The  natural  consequence 
is,  that  capital  accumulates  at  the  North  with  vastly  greater  rapidity  than  at 
the  South.  The  papers  of  the  day  inform  us  that  the  taxable  property  of 
Pennsylvania  is  valued  by  the  revenue  board  of  that  State  at  880  millions, 
and  if  to  this  we  add  that  which  is  not  liable  to  taxation,  we  shall  obtain  a 
sum  little  less  than  a  thousand  millions,  or  more  than  the  value  in  1850  of 
all  the  land  in  the  States  above  given  to  a  southern  Union.  Aided  by  all 
this  machinery,  the  quantity  of  northern  production  is  immense,  when  com 
pared  with  that  of  the  South,  and  of  this  we  could  scarcely  desire  better 
evidence  than  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  merchandise  carried  on  the  Penn 
sylvania  canal,  and  the  Erie  canal,  alone  amounts  to  five  millions  of  tons,  or 
ten  times  the  weight  of  the  crop  produced  in  the  ten  cotton-growing  States  that 
have,  with  the  exception  of  sugar,  little  else  to  give  to  the  world  in  exchange 
for  all  they  need  to  obtain.  It  is,  we  think,  quite  impossible  to  examine  these 
facts  without  a  feeling  of  surprise  at  the  entire  insignificance  of  the  trade  for 
which  the  North  is  indebted  to  the  Union. 

In  estimating  the  "  power  and  gain"  to  the  North  resulting  from  its  union 
with  the  South,  it  is  required  that  the  reader  should  remark  that  the  iclwle 
of  their  own  vast  product  is  in  constant  course  of  being  exchanged  among 
themselves ;  whereas,  it  is  only  the  exchangeable  surplus  of  the  South  with 
which  the  people  outside  of  those  States  have  anything  to  do.  The  man  of 
New  York  derives  no  advantage  from  the  corn  that  is  fed  in  Virginia  to  the 
slave  that  is  raised  for  exportation  to  Mississippi.  The  corn  raised  in  Ala 
bama  appears  abroad  only  in  the  form  of  cotton,  while  that  of  Louisiana 
comes  to  the  North  only  as  sugar  or  molasses.  The  whole  exportable  pro 
duct  of  the  South  consists  of  cotton,  tobacco,  rice,  naval  stores,  sugar,  hemp, 
and  some  grain,  chiefly  from  Virginia  and  North  Carolina.  The  value  of 
the  first  six,  as  given  by  De  Bow,  for  1850,  was,  as  the  reader  has  seen, 
$138,000,000,  fifty-three  of  which  were  for  domestic  consumption,  and  eighty- 
five  for  export.  The  cotton,  sugar,  and  other  commodities  required  for  their 
own  consumption,  are  to  be  deducted,  and  this  would  leave  the  northern  con 
sumption  at  about  $50,000,000.  The  mode  in  which  these  quantities  are 
divided  would  seem  to  be  as  follows : — 

Exported  from  southern  ports,  and  paid  for  by  imports  into 

those  ports  from  foreign  countries  ....  $15,000,000 

Exported  from  southern  ports,  and  paid  for  by  imports  from, 

or  through,  the  North  .  .  .  "  .  .  59,000,000 

Exported  from  northern  ports,  and  paid  for  from,  or  through, 

the  North 9,000,000 

Retained  for  consumption  at  the  North      .     }.>r*  -•  -.-•  >-? '  50,000,000 

Total        .         .        -;-^,     .      rorf  '  ..      .    $133,000,000 

From  this,  the  reader  will  readily  perceive  that  the  total  amount  of  trade 
from  which  the  North  can  derive  any  "power  or  gain,"  is  but  $118,000,000, 
or  about  four  per  cent,  of  its  own  productive  power.  The  question  to  be 
settled  is,  however,  not  the  total  quantity,  but  how  much  of  it  is  due  to  the 
Union,  and  how  much  would  be  lost  by  a  dissolution  of  that  Union.  So  far 
as  the  South  exports  and  imports  directly,  the  North  has  no  more  to  gain 
from  it  than  from  the  export  of  negroes  to  Alabama  or  Texas.  Next;  so  far 


14 

as  regards  the  export  of  fifty-nine  millions  to  foreign  ports  from  southern 
ones,  it  gains  nothing  by  the  Union,  because  northern  ships  enjoy  in  those 
ports  no  advantage  over  foreign  ones,  and  they  have,  therefore,  nothing  to 
lose  by  secession.  If  a  Boston  ship  will  carry  cotton  as  cheaply  as  an  English 
or  French  one,  she  will  have  it  to  carry,  and  not  else.  Again,  as  regards  the 
export  of  southern  products  from  northern  ports,  there  would  seem  to  be  little 
to  lose,  for  the  reasons  for  this  trade  would  continue  then  to  be  the  same  as 
now.  We  import  largely  of  men  and  other  valuable  commodities  into  northern 
ports,  and  can,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  afford  to  take  return  freight  so 
cheaply  as  to  offer  an  inducement  to  bring  cotton  and  other  southern  products 
to  northern  ports  on  their  way  to  Europe.  So  far  as  regards  navigation,  and 
the  profits  of  the  export  trade,  then,  there  would  seem  to  be  nothing  what 
ever  to  be  lost  by  separation. 

The  amount  of  southern  products  paid  for  by,  or  through,  the  North,  would 
seem  to  be  about  $118,000,000,  of  which  the  quantity  required  for  consump 
tion  at  the  North  is  $50,000,000.  It  is  quite  certain  that  this  trade  of  im 
portation  for  home  consumption  would  continue,  because  we  should  certainly 
be  willing  to  pay  the  highest  prices,  and  the  South  would  not  decline  to  sell 
because  the  Union  had  been  dissolved.  As  regards  the  exportation  of  goods 
to  pay  for  them,  the  case  would,  however,  be  somewhat,  though  we  think,  not 
veiy  widely  different. 

The  South  would  then  be  in  the  same  situation  with  Canada;  with,  how 
ever,  this  disadvantage,  that  the  latter  builds  and  sails  ships,  which  the  former 
does  not,  except  to  a  very  small  extent.  Even  now,  Canada  looks  anxiously 
to  a  market  in  the  Union.  She  can  send  her  wheat  to  England,  duty  free, 
either  direct  or  through  our  ports ;  and  yet  the  price  is  always  lower  on  the 
north  of  the  line  than  it  is  on  the  south  of  it,  by  the  whole  amount  of  duty. 
She  can  have  direct  trade  with  England,  duty  free,  and  yet  she  takes  from 
us  goods  to  the  extent  of  five  millions  of  dollars  per  annum  in  payment  for 
her  produce.  With  the  South,  the  case  is  yet  much  stronger.  Of  all  the 
articles  of  domestic  production  now  sold  to  the  South,  a  very  large  portion, 
including,  of  course,  the  products  of  the  West,  are  cheaper  than  they  can  be 
obtained  elsewhere,  and  we  must  continue  to  supply  them.  As  regards  foreign 
commodities,  Boston  will  continue  to  import  India  goods;  New  York,  teas; 
Philadelphia  and  Baltimore,  coffee;  and  all  will  import  the  finer  commodities 
of  Europe,  for  the  supply  of  the  southern  as  well  as  the  northern  States  that 
now  constitute  the  Union.  Many  of  these  goods  will  be  exported  South  in 
bond,  as  they  are  now  exported  to  Canada  and  Cuba,  but  they  must  continue 
to  pass  through  northern  ports.  Admit,  however,  what  we  believe  to  be  im 
possible,  that  one-half  of  this  one  hundred  and  eighteen  millions  should  be 
imported  into  the  South  directly  from  abroad,  and  that  we  should  lose  on  this 
one-half,  in  commissions  and  profits  of  various  kinds,  twenty-five  per  cent., 
the  total  amount  of  "power  and  gain'7  to  be  lost  by  a  dissolution  of  the  Union 
would  appear  to  be  less  than  fifteen  millions  of  dollars,  or  about  eighty 
cents  per  head  of  the  northern  Union.  Against  this,  however,  there  would 
be  connected  with  our  foreign  trade,  important  offsets.  Sugar  would  then  be 
free  as  tea  and  coffee  now  are,  and  as  we  should  be  released  from  any  necessity 
for  interfering  against  the  gradual  emancipation  of  the  slaves  of  Cuba,  it  may 
fairly  be  inferred  that  the  trade  with  that  island,  and  also  with  Brazil,  would 
be  greatly  increased,  and  that  we  should  derive  from  them  nearly  all  the 
sugar,  of  which  we  take  now  to  the  amount  of  fourteen  millions  from  the 
South.  We  should  also  be  at  liberty  to  recognize  the  free  people  of  St.  Do 
mingo,  and  of  Liberia,  and  our  trade  in  those  quarters  would  grow  with  great 


15 

rapidity.  These  would,  to  a  great  extent,  make  amends  for  diminution  at  the 
South,  and  would,  as  we  think,  lessen  the  loss  to  one- half,  or  about  seven 
millions  of  dollars,  at  which  sum,  or  forty  cents  per  head,  we  feel  disposed, 
after  this  examination,  to  estimate  the  pecuniary  value  of  the  Union  to  the 
North.  What  is  the  cost  of  that  Union,  we  propose  next  to  consider. 


COST  OF  THE  UNION. 

The  policy  of  the  North  looks  homeward.  Northern  men  seek  no  enlarge 
ment  of  territory,  but  they  desire  to  render  productive  what  they  have.  To 
accomplish  that  object  they  need  canals,  railroads,  light-houses,  and  the  re 
moval  of  obstructions  to  the  navigation  of  rivers,  and  for  these  latter  purposes 
they  have  steadily  and  regularly  asked  the  aid  of  Congress. 

Southern  policy  looks  outward.  Southern  men  seek  additions  to  their  ter 
ritory,  but  they  do  not  endeavor  to  render  productive  what  they  have.  Dela 
ware,  Maryland,  and  Virginia,  and  much  of  the  Carolinas,  and  of  Kentucky, 
have  been  exhausted  by  abstracting  from  the  soil  all  the  elements  of  produc 
tion,  and  the  occupants  of  their  exhausted  lands  find  themselves  forced  to 
seek  abroad  for  new  lands  to  be  in  their  turn  exhausted — and  hence  it  is  that 
the  South  is  always  on  the  watch  to  secure  by  war,  or  purchase,  enlargements 
of  its  surface.  Southern  men,  consequently,  deny  to  the  government  the 
right  of  aiding  in  the  construction  of  roads  or  canals,  or  of  appropriating  from 
the  treasury  any  moneys  to  be  used  in  the  construction  of  light-houses,  the 
formation  of  harbors,  or  the  removal  of  obstructions  from  rivers;  and  it  is  to 
meet  southern  objections  to  governmental  action  that  it  is  now  proposed  to 
establish  a  great  system  of  local  taxation  calculated  largely  to  interfere  with 
the  free  circulation  of  men  and  merchandise  throughout  the  Union. 

Half  a  century  since,  the  great  territory  of  Louisiana  was  purchased,  chiefly 
for  the  South.  At  the  close  of  that  long  period  the  North  has  obtained  from 
it  but  a  single  State,  while  the  South  has  had  already  three,  and  now  insists 
that  the  whole  vast  territory  which  yet  remains  unoccupied  shall  be  thrown 
open  to  cultivation  by  slaves,  and  to  ownership  by  the  owners  of  those  slaves. 
In  1820,  the  territory  of  Florida  was  purchased  for  the  South,  at  a  cost  of 
seven  millions  of  dollars,  paid  out  by  taxes  imposed  on  property  of  the  North 
and  South.  In  the  eight  years  succeeding  that  purchase — from  1821  to 
1829 — the  annual  expenditure  of  the  government,  exclusive  of  payments  on 
account  of  the  national  debt,  was  but  thirteen  millions  of  dollars,  and  yet  out 
of  that  small  sum,  considerable  sums  were  appropriated  to  the  Cumberland 
road,  and  other  works  of  internal  improvement. 

The  administration  of  Gen.  Jackson  succeeded  that  of  Mr.  Adams  in  1829, 
and  the  expenditure  rose  in  the  first  term  to  nearly  seventeen  millions,  while 
in  the  second  it  was  more  than  twenty-five  millions,  little  if  any  of  which  was 
expended  on  any  of  those  works  of  peace  desired  by  the  North,  because  the 
South  had  then  determined  that  all  such  appropriations  were  violations  of  the 
Constitution.  It  was,  however,  'deemed  perfectly  constitutional  to  swell  the 
military  and  naval  expenditure  from  eight  millions,  in  1828,  to  twenty-two 
millions,  in  1836,  because  the  object  of  that  increase  was  the  extirpation  of 
the  few  and  poor  Seminoles  of  Florida,  whose  occupation  interfered  with  the 
enlargement  of  the  field  for  slave  labor. 

Mr.  Van  Buren  followed,  and  in  his  period  we  find  the  expenditure  to 
have  been  carried  up  to  an  average  of  thirty  millions,  no  part  of  which  was 
allowed  to  be  appropriated  to  internal  improvements  asked  for  by  the  North, 


16 

while  the  Florida  war  was  permitted  to  absorb  enormous  masses  of  treasure 
contributed  by  the  people  of  the  Union,  North  and  South.  In  the  first  two 
years  of  his  administration,  the  expenditure  for  military  purposes  averaged  no 
less  than  twenty-one  millions,  and  the  total  amount  so  expended  in  the  four 
years,  was  sixty-eight  millions,  or  sixteen  millions  more  than  was  expended 
for  all  purposes  by  Mr.  Adams.  It  was,  however,  for  southern  purposes,  and 
therefore  constitutional. 

Under  the  succeeding  administration,  the  total  expenditure  was  reduced  to 
twenty  millions,  or  less  than  has  been  expended  on  the  army  and  navy  alone 
by  Mr.  Van  Buren,  while  engaged  in  clearing  out  the  Seminoles.  The  death 
of  Gen.  Harrison  having  thrown  the  executive  power  into  southern  hands,  we 
find  that  twice  during  Mr.  Tyler's  occupation  of  the  presidential  chair,  was 
the  veto  applied  to  bills  intended  to  satisfy  the  just  expectations  of  northern 
men  anxious  to  improve  the  intercourse  by  the  lakes  and  rivers  of  the  West. 

With  Mr.  Polk  came  the  war  for  settling  the  boundaries  of  Texas  and  en 
larging  the  area  of  slave  territory,  and  now  the  expenditure  rose  to  an  average 
of  forty-four  millions,  chiefly  bestowed  on  the  army  and  navy.  Large,  how 
ever,  as  was  the  amount  to  be  expended,  not  a  dollar  could  go  for  the  promo 
tion  of  the  peaceful  improvements  of  the  North;  for  when,  in  1845,  Congress 
appropriated  about  a  million  of  dollars  for  improvements  on  the  lakes  and 
western  rivers,  the  bill  was  vetoed  by  Mr.  Polk  as  unconstitutional;  and 
when,  in  1846,  a  still  more  modest  bill  was  sent  to  him,  appropriating  only 
half  a  million  to  all  such  purposes,  he  pocketed  it,  and  it  failed  to  become  a 
law.  The  same  difficulty  occurred  in  regard  to  a  bill  for  the  payment  of  the 
debt  owing  by  the  nation  to  the  unfortunate  claimants  on  account  of  French 
spoliations.  Passed  by  Congress,  it  was  vetoed  by  the  President,  because 
inconvenient  to  pay  such  claims  while  engaged  in  a  war  for  the  extension  of 
territory  on  our  southern  and  south-western  borders.  To  secure  that  extension 
•we  had  to  support  an  expensive  war,  and  finally  to  pay  fifteen  millions  to  the 
Mexican  Government;  but  happily  "squatter  government"  secured  to  the 
Northern  States  a  portion  of  the  territory  for  nearly  all  of  which  they  had 
been  required  to  pay. 

Texas  had  been  dragged  into  the  Union  by  Mr.  Polk,  and  in  1850  the  peo 
ple  of  the  North  were  required  to  unite  in  paying  ten  millions  for  this  enlarge 
ment  of  slave  territory. 

The  expenditure  seems  now  to  be  fixed  at  from  forty  to  fifty  millions  of 
dollars,  of  which  the  military  and  naval  department,  exclusive  of  the  contracts 
for  mail  steamers,  require  more  than  twenty,  or  one-half  more  than  was  ex 
pended  by  Mr.  Adams  for  all  purposes,  internal  and  external.  Having  pur 
chased  Louisiana,  Florida,  Texas,  and  New  Mexico  for  the  South,  we  have  but 
just  escaped  the  payment  of  twenty  millions  for  an  enlargement  of  the  area  of 
slavery,  accomplished  by  Gen.  Gadsden,  and  yet  not  a  dollar  is  likely  to  be 
obtained  for  removing  obstructions  from  the  great  rivers  of  the  West,  or  for 
improving  the  harbors  of  the  lakes.  Any  amount  may  be  lavished  upon 
foreign  missions,  having  for  their  object  the  removal  of  restrictions  on  the 
tobacco  trades  of  France  or  Germany,  because  that  interests  the  South;  but 
the  treasury  is  hermetically  sealed  against  the  claims  of  the  North  for  any 
aid  in  developing  the  resources  of  its  territory,  or  in  facilitating  intercourse 
between  the  States  of  the  East  and  the  West. 

We  beg  our  readers  to  reflect  carefully  upon  these  facts,  and  then  to  study 
how  much  expenditure  would  be  required  for  a  northern  Union.  We  need 
scarcely  any  army,  for  we  desire  no  extension  of  territory.  We  do  not  desire 
to  add  Canada  to  the  Union,  and  were  the  offer  of  annexation  at  this  moment 


17 

made  it  might  not  be  accepted,  while  the  South  is  always  at  work  to  obtain 
territory  by  purchase,  or  by  force  of  arms.  But  recently,  it  offered  a  hundred 
millions  for  Cuba,  to  be  paid  out  of  the  revenue  contributed  by  all  the  States, 
and  the  chief  reason  for  so  doing  was  the  danger  that  the  slaves  of  that  island 
might,  at  some  future  time,  become  free,  and  thus  be  placed  in  a  situation 
that  would  render  them  dangerous  to  their  slave-holding  neighbors  of  Florida 
and  Carolina.  The  North  dares  not  even  propose  to  accept,  free  of  cost,  the 
British  possessions  with  two  and  a  half  millions  of  free  inhabitants;  and  yet 
the  South  does  not  hesitate  at  buying  Cuba  at  a  hundred  millions,  nor  would 
it  hesitate  about  involving  the  whole  country  in  a  war  that  might  cost  twice 
that  sum,  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  any  movement  in  the  island  looking  to 
the  gradual  enfranchisement  of  its  negro  population. 

The  North,  as  we  have  said,  scarcely  needs  an  army.  It  has  but  little  need 
for  a  navy  j  but  even  admitting  that  five  millions  were  required  for  that  pur 
pose,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  expenditure  of  Mr.  Adams  could  be  much 
exceeded.  The  post-office  of  a  northern  Union  would  support  itself  at  lower 
rates  than  those  now  paid,  for  we  have  thrice  the  amount  of  population  capable 
of  maintaining  correspondence,  and  three  times  thrice  the  quantity  of  ex 
changes,  while  the  organized  territory  of  the  South  is  greater  by  almost  one 
half  than  that  of  the  North.  The  diplomacy  of  a  northern  Union  would  re 
quire  small  expenditure,  for  we  have  nothing  to  ask  for,  and  there  is  nothing 
for  which  we  desire  to  fight.  Northern  policy  looks,  as  we  have  said,  always 
homeward,  while  that  of  the  South  looks  always  outward,  as  witness  the  con 
stantly  repeated  invasions  of  Texas  and  of  Cuba. 

Admitting,  however,  that  the  expenditures  of  a  northern  Union  should 
reach  the  sum  of  twenty  millions,  even  that  is  less  by  five  and  twenty  millions 
than  its  present  amount — and  not  one-half  of  that  excess  is  paid  by  the  South. 
How,  indeed  should  it  be  ?  Nearly  all  our  revenue  comes  from  duties  on 
foreign  merchandise,  of  which  slaves  consume  but  little,  and  the  poorer  class 
of  white  people  of  the  South  consume  but  little  more.  Taking,  however,  the 
whole  white  population  of  the  South,  we  have  but  five  millions  of  consumer? 
to  put  against  thrice  that  number  at  the  North ;  and  if  the  consumption  f  per 
head,  were  equally  great  in  all  portions  of  the  Union,  their  contributions  would 
be  but  one-fourth  of  the  whole,  or  about  one-half  of  the  twenty-live  millions 
of  excess  expenditure.  That  the  southern  consumption,  per  uead,  will  aver 
age  less,  and  much  less,  than  that  of  the  North,  no  one  can  doubt ;  and  it  is, 
we  think,  quite  as  little  to  be  doubted  that  the  contributions  of  the  South 
towards  the  revenue  are  less  than  ten  millions  of  dollars — a  sum  not  more 
than  sufficient  to  pay  the  mere  interest  upon  the  sums  expended  in  the  purchase 
of  southern  land,  and  on  the  making  of  wars  for  southern  purposes.  We  are 
now  about  to  spend  twenty  millions  more,  and  if  Cuba  can  be  had  at  a  hun 
dred  millions,  it  will  be  bought — and  the  interest  upon  these  two  sums  alone 
will  amount  to  seven  millions  two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  or  a  large  portion 
of  the  whole  amount  of  contributions  furnished  by  the  South.  The  same  men 
who  now  urge  upon  the  whole  Union  these  enormous  expenditures  for  southern 
purposes,  deem  it  so  highly  unconstitutional  to  appropriate  a  single  dollar  for 
the  improvement  of  rivers  and  harbors,  that  to  keep  within  the  letter  of  the 
law  they  would  violate  its  spirit  by  authorizing  states,  counties,  cities,  and 
towns  to  make  improvements  and  charge  tonnage  duties  upon  ships  and  mer 
chandise,  by  which  Iowa  and  Illinois,  Missouri  and  Kentucky,  would  be  com 
pelled  to  contribute  largely  in  taxation  for  the  promotion  of  the  trade  of  New 
Orleans. 

We  are  assure^  that  all  these  expenditures  are  nqQessary  to  provide  a.u  out- 


18 

let  for  the  rapidly  growing  negro  population.  Well !  the  land  is  purchased,  and 
next,  we  are  told  that  labor  is  scarce — that  negroes  are  high — that  it  is  un 
just  to  permit  Alabama  and  Texas  to  be  taxed  by  Virginia  to  the  extent  of  a 
thousand  dollars  for  a  negro,  when  as  good  an  one  can  be  brought  from  Africa 
for  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars — and  that,  therefore,  we  should  re-establish 
the  African  slave-trade.  Such  is  the  tendency  of  things,  and  such  is  the  end 
to  which  we  are  pointed  at  the  close  of  much  less  than  a  century  after  the 
publication  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  in  which  it  was  asserted  that 
all  men  were  born  "  free  and  equal."  Prussia  has  emancipated  her  serfs,  and 
Russia  and  Austria  are  now  moving  steadily  towards  the  perfect  enfranchise 
ment  of  their  people,  but  we  of  the  North  are  paying  many  millions  of  dollars 
annually  for  the  enlargement  of  slave  territory,  to  end  in  re-establishing  the 
infamous  trade  by  which  Africa  was  so  long  degraded  and  depopulated.  At  this 
moment,  we  are  urged  to  expend  several  millions  on  the  enlargement  of  our 
steam  marine,  and  among  the  important  reasons  for  this  measure  offered  by 
Mr.  Bocock  of  Virginia,  is,  that  "  the  latent  spark"  of  freedom  is  likely  now 
to  blaze  out  in  Cuba,  when  the  "  blood  of  Mr.  Crittenden  and  his  companions 
will  not  in  vain  cry  for  vengeance."  Should,  however,  the  spark  of  freedom 
blaze  out  among  the  laborers  of  that  island,  their  steamships  will  certainly  be 
used  for  its  extinguishment.  Mr.  Bocock  is  for  extending  the  area  of  slavery, 
and  not  that  of  freedom,  and  it  is  for  that  object  he  would  have  us  build  so 
many  ships. 

There  are  in  the  United  States,  as  we  are  told,  234  colleges,  with  1,651 
teachers,  27,159  students,  and  an  annual  income  of  $452,314  from  endow 
ments,  $15,485  from  taxation,  $184,549  from  public  funds,  and  $1,264,280 
from  other  sources ;  making,  in  all,  $1,916,628.  Of  public  schools,  for 
common  and  academic  education,  there  are  80,991,  with  92,000  teachers, 
3,354,173  pupils,  and  an  income  of  $182,594  from  endowments,  $4,686,414 
from  taxes,  $2,547,669  from  public  funds,  and  $2,147,853  from  all  other 
sources ;  reaching  a  total  of  $9,591,530.  Add  these  two  sums,  and 
we  find  an  expenditure  for  popular  education,  in  all  its  departments,  of 
11,508,158  of  dollars.  Of  this,  the  proportion  expended  north  of  Mason 
and  Dixoii's  line  is  probably  about  not  less  than  four-fifths,  or  more  than  nine 
millions  of  dollars,  a  considerable  sum  certainly,  but  yet  less  than  the  interest 
on  the  expenditures  for  purchasing  Florida  and  exterminating  the  Seminoles — 
for  purchasing  Texas  and  carrying  on  the  war  that  was  declared  to  "exist" 
v:hen  it  was  deemed  desirable  to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  that  State  by  seizing  on 
New  Mexico. 

Of  the  hundred  millions  already  offered  ly  the  South  for  Cuba,  four-fifths 
would  be  paid  by  the  North ;  and  if  northern  men  desire  to  understand  the 
object  for  which  they  are  required  to  pay  this  enormous  sum,  they  will  obtain 
the  information  by  reading  the  following  passages  from  the  Richmond  En 
quirer: — 

"  Our  view  of  the  policy  of  this  measure,  as  of  every  other,  is  determined  by  the 
paramount  and  controlling  consideration  of  southern  interests.  It  is  because  we  regard 
the  acquisition  of  Cuba  as  essential  to  the  stability  of  the  system  of  slavery,  and  to  the  just 
ascendancy  of  the  South,  that  we  consent  to  forego  our  habitual  repugnance  to  political 
change,  and  to  advocate  a  measure  of  such  vast,  and,  in  some  respects,  uncertain 
consequences.  The  only  possible  way  in  which  the  South  can  indemnify  itself  for  its 
concessions  to  the  anti-slavery  fanaticism,  is  by  the  acquisition  of  additional  slave  terri 
tory.  *  *  We  must  reinforce  the  powers  of  slavery  as  an  element  of  political  control, 
and  this  can  only  be  done  by  the  annexation  of  Cuba.  In  no  other  direction  is  there  a 
chance  for  the  aggrandizement  of  slavery.  The  intrigues  of  Great  Britain  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  that  island  are  pursued  with  a  zeal  and  an  energy  which  cannot 
fail  of  success,  unless  the  United  States  interfere  to  prevent  the  consummation.  The  only 


19 

effectual  mode  by  which  this  may  be  done,  is  by  the  transfer  of  the  island  to  the  dominion 
of  the  States.  If  we  contemplate  the  possible  alternative  of  the  disruption  of  the  Union, 
by  the  mud  spirit  of  abolition,  the  necessity  for  the  acquisition  of  Cuba  as  a  support  to 
the  South,  becomes  even  more  manifest  and  urgent.  With  Cuba  in  the  possession  of  an 
hostile  interest,  southern  slavery  would  be  exposed  to  an  assault  which  it  could  neither 
resist  nor  endure.  With  Cuba  as  a  member  of  a  great  southern  confederacy,  slavery  might 
lid  defiance  to  its  enemies" 

The  following  pleasant  and  suggestive  article  is  from  The  Southern 
Standard,  an  administration  paper  published  at  Charleston,  South  Carolina. 
It  is  a  frank,  bold  statement  of  the  policy  of  the  administration  upon  the 
slavery  question,  which  our  readers  will  do  well  to  look  at  by  way  of  refresh 
ing  themselves.  It  will  amply  repay  perusal : — 

"A  general  rupture  in  Europe  would  force  upon  us  the  undisputed  sway  of  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  West  Indies,  with  all  their  rich  and  mighty  productions. 
Guided  by  our  genius  and  enterprise,  a  new  world  would  rise  there,  as  it  did  before 
under  the  genius  of  Columbus.     With  Cuba  and  St.  Domingo,  we  could  control  the 
productions  of  the  tropics,  and,  with  them,  the  commerce  of  the  world,  and  with  that, 
the  power  of  the  world.     Our  true  policy  is  to  look  to  Brazil  as  the  next  great  slave 
power,  and  as  the  government  that  is  to  direct  or  license  the  development  of  the 
country  drained  by  the  Amazon.     Instead  of  courting  England,  we  should  look  to 
Brazil  and  the  West  Indies.     The  time  will  come  when  a  treaty  of  commerce  and  alli 
ance  with  Brazil  will  give  us  the  control  over  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  its  border  coun 
tries,  together  with  the  islands,  and  the  consequence  of  this  will  place  African  slavery 
beyond  the  reach  of  fanaticism,  at  home  or  abroad.    These  two  great  slave  powers  now 
hold  more  undeveloped  territory  than  any  other  two  governments,  and  they  ought 
to  guard  and  strengthen  their  mutual  interests  by  acting  together  in  strict  harmony 
and  concert.     Considering  our  vast  resources  and  the  mighty  commerce  that  is  about 
to  expand  upon  the  bosom  of  the  two  countries,  if  we  act  together  by  treaty  we  cannot 
only  preserve  domestic  servitude,  but  we  can  defy  the  power  of  the  world.    With  firmness 
and  judgment,  we  can  open  up  the  African  slave-emigration,  again  to  people  the  noble 
region  of  the  tropics.     We  can  boldly  defend  this  upon  the  most  enlarged  system  of 
philanthropy.     It  is  far  better  for  the  wild  races  of  Africa  themselves.     Look  at  the 
3,000,000  in  the  United  States  who  have  had  the  blessings,  not  only  of  civilization  but 
of  Christianity.     Can  any  man  pretend  to  say  that  they  would  have  been  better  off  in 
the  barbarian  state  of  their  native  wilderness ;  and  has  not  the  attempt  to  suppress, 
by  force,  this  emigration,  increased  the  horrors  of  the  '  middle  passage'  tenfold  ?    The 
good  old  Las  Casas,  in  1519,  was  the  first  to  advise  Spain  to  import  Africans  to  her 
colonies,  as  a  substitute  for  the  poor  Indians,  who,  from  their  peculiar  nature,  were 
totally  unsuited  to  bear  the  labors  of  slavery.     Experience  has  shown  that  his  scheme 
was  founded  in  wise  and  Christian  philanthropy.     Millions  of  the  black  men,  yet  un 
born,  will  rise  up  to  bless  his  benevolent  memory.     The  time  is  coming  when  we  will 
boldly  defend  this  emigration  before  the  world.     The  hypocritical  cant  and  whining 
morality  of  the  latter-day  saints  will  die  away  before  the  majesty  of  commerce,  and  the 
power  of  those  vast  productions  which  are  to  spring  from  the  cultivation  and  full  de 
velopment  of  the  mighty  tropical  regions  in  our  own  hemisphere.     If  it  be  mercy  to 
give  the  grain-growing  sections  of  America  to  the  poor  and  hungry  of  Europe,  why 
not  open  up  the  tropics  to  the  poor  African  ?     The  one  region  is  as  eminently  suited 
to  them  as  the  other  is  to  the  white  race.     There  is  as  much  philanthropy  in  one  as 
the  other.     We  have  been  too  long  governed  by  psalm-singing  schoolmasters  from  the 
North.     It  is  time  to  think  for  ourselves.     The  folly  commenced  in  our  own  govern 
ment  uniting  with  Great  Britain  to  declare   slave  importation  piracy.     Piracy  is  a 
crime  on  the  high  seas,  arising  under  the  law  of  nations,  and  it  is  as  well  defined  by 
those  laws  as  murder  is  at  common  law.     And  for  two  nations  to  attempt  to  make 
that  piracy  which  is  not  so,  under  the  law  of  nations,  is  an  absurdity.     You  might  as 
well  declare  it  burglary,  or  arson,  or  anything  else.     And  we  have  ever  since,  by  a 
joint  fleet  with  Great  Britain  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  been  struggling  to  enforce  this 
miserable  blunder.     The  time  will  come  that  all  the  islands  and  regions  suited  to 
African  slavery,  between  us  and  Brazil,  will  fall  under  the  control  of  these  two  slave 
powers,  in  some  shape  or  other,  either  by  treaty  or  actual  possession  of  the  one 
government  or  the  other.     And  the  statesman  who  closes  his  eyes  to  these  results, 
has  but  a  very  small  view  of  the  great  questions  and  interests  that  are  looming  up  in 
the  future.     In  a  few  years,  there  will  be  no  investment  for  the  two  hundred  millions, 


20 

in  the  annual  increase  of  gold  on  a  large  scale,  so  profitable  and  so  necessary,  as  the 
development  and  cultivation  of  the  tropical  regions  now  slumbering  in  rank  and  wild 
luxuriance.  If  the  slaveholding  race  in  these  States  are  but  true  to  themselves,  they 
have  a  great  destiny  before  them." 

As  the  first  steps  towards  the  accomplishment  of  these  objects,  we  are 
now  to  convert  the  Mcsilla  Valley  into  slave  territory,  and  to  arrange 
for  bringing  the  negroes  of  Cuba  within  the  Union,  and  thus  forever  to 
prevent  that  island  from  becoming  the  property  of  free  black  men;  and  the 
mere  annual  interest  of  these  two  purchases — to  say  nothing  of  the  additional 
army  and  navy  that  will  be  required — will  amount  to  four-fifths  of  the  whole 
amount  now  paid  for  educational  purposes  throughout  free  States  of  the 
Union. 

Having  studied  these  facts,  we  beg  our  readers  now  to  remark  how  fully 
they  bear  out  the  statement  of  the  Charleston  Courier  as  to  the  error  of  those 
who  suppose  '•  that  the  action  of  the  general  government  has  been  hostile  to 
slavery."  "  The  truth  is,"  as  it  continues,  "  that  although  hostile  in  its  in- 
cipiency,  to  domestic  slavery,  it  afterwards  so  changed  its  action  tLat  it  has 
fostered  the  slave-holding  interest,"  and  this  it  has  done  by  taxing  the  free 
people  of  the  North  for  the  steady  extension  of  the  area  of  slavery,  while  de 
nying  the  constitutionality  of  any  expenditures  tending  to  the  improvement 
of  the  lands,  or  of  the  people,  of  the  North  and  West. 

Such  is  a  portion  of  the  cost  of  the  Union.  What  is  its  value  has  been 
shown.  On  a  future  occasion  we  shall  furnish  some  further  items  of  the  cost; 
but  meantime  will  beg  our  readers  to  reflect  whether  a  trade  that  cannot  be 
worth  a  dozen  millions  per  annum  is  not  dearly  paid  for  by  the  maintenance 
of  a  system  that  takes  from  the  North  so  many  millions  annually  to  be  applied 
to  the  purchase  of  southern  land,  and  the  support  of  southern  wars,  when  they 
might  so  advantageously  be  applied  to  the  improvement  of  rivers  and  harbors 
by  which  northern  farmers  could  cheaply  get  to  market,  and  the  improvement 
of  schools  at  which  northern  children  might  be  cheaply  educated. 

THE  GREAT  STRUGGLE. 

The  history  of  the  world  from  the  earliest  ages  is  little  more  than  a  record 
of  the  efforts  of  the  strong  who  have  desired  to  enslave  the  weak,  and  of  the 
counter  efforts  of  the  latter  to  obtain  power  to  work  for  themselves.  The 
former  have,  in  all  ages,  been  large  monopolists  of  land,  while  the  latter  have 
at  all  times  sought  to  obtain  homesteads  to  be  improved  for  their  own  benefit 
and  that  of  their  wives  and  children.  The  former  have  always  sought  cheap 
laborers,  desiring  'to  purchase  at  their  own  prices,  the  bone,  the  muscle,  and 
the  sinew  required  for  their  purposes,  selling  at  the  dearest  rate  the  produce 
of  the  labor  of  their  slaves ;  while  the  latter  have  always  desired  to  fix  the 
price  of  their  own  labor,  and  to  profit  by  their  own  exertions.  By  the  former, 
honest  labor  has  been  held  in  low  esteem,  because  they  lived  at  the  cost  of 
those  who  labored  in  the  field  for  the  production  of  food  or  wool,  and  those  in 
the  town  who  consumed  the  food  while  making  the  cloth.  By  the  latter,  labor 
has  been  esteemed  as  a  means  of  acquiring  honest  independence.  In  the 
former  class  we  find  the  slave-owners,  politicians,  and  tax-consumers  of  the 
world,  while  in  the  latter  we  find  the  laborers  and  tax-payers  of  the  world. 
In  the  one  we  find  the  advocates  of  armies  and  navies,  war  and  fillibusterism, 
and  in  the  other  the  friends  of  peace  and  cheap  government.  Between  these 
classes  there  has,  from  time  immemorial,  been  a  contest  for  power ;  the  one 
desiring  to  tyrannize  over  others,  and  the  other  to  govern  themselves,  and  to 
work  for  their  own  profit. 


21 

Such  is  the  contest  now  in  progress  throughout  this  country.  The  great 
issue  of  our  day  is,  as  we  are  informed  by  the  Charleston  Eccn  ing  News,  uthe 
extension  or  non-extension,  of  the  institution  [slavery]  whose  foundations  are 
broad  and  solid  in  our  midst."  It  is,  whether  free  labor  shall  become  slave 
labor,  or  slave  labor  become  free  labor.  At  the  South,  we  see  a  body  of  great 
land-owners  surrounded  by  slaves  who  work  for  them,  while  they  themselves 
live  upon  the  profits  derived  from  standing  between  the  men  who  work  to  pro 
duce  cotton,  sugar,  and  tobacco,  and  those  other  men  who  require  to  consume 
those  commodities.  At  the  North,  on  the  contrary,  we  see  the  whole  surface 
of  the  country  divided  among  a  body  of  small  land-owners,  unequalled  in  the 
world  for  number,  all  working  for  themselves.  On  the  one  side  we  have  a 
large  body  of  men  who  desire  to  buy  labor,  and  wish  to  have  it  cheaply  j 
while  on  the  other  there  is  a  vastly  larger  body  that  desire  to  sell  labor,  and 
to  sell  it  dearly.  The  objects  sought  to  be  attained  by  the  two  sections  of  the 
country  differ  as  widely  as  do  the  poles  of  the  compass,  and  it  can,  therefore, 
be  matter  of  small  surprise  that  there  is  almost  as  great  a  difference  in  the 
course  of  policy  that  each  desires  to  see  pursued — the  northern  portion  of  the 
Union  seeking  for  protection  against  the  cheap  labor  system  of  Europe,  as 
the  best  mode  of  advancing  the  laborer,  and  the  southern  portion  clinging  to 
the  British  free  trade  system  as  the  most  efficient  means  of  cheapening  labor, 
and  enslaving  the  laborer. 

The  men  who  own  laborers  are  few  in  number  when  compared  with  the 
number  of  northern  men  who  own  themselves,  and  seek  to  sell  their  own  labor; 
but,  as  is  the  case  in  all  aristocracies,  the  slave  owners  almost  always  work 
together,  while  the  free  people  are  divided  among  themselves.  The  conse 
quence  of  this  has  been  that  the  former  have  generally,  as  the  Charleston  Cou 
rier  boastingly  informs  its  readers,  "  obtained  the  mastery  in  Congress,"  and 
have  within  the  last  twenty  years  "so  changed  its  policy  that  its  action  for 
the  most  part,  and  with  only  a  few  exceptions,  has  fostered  the  slave-holding 
interest ;"  und  this  it  has  done  at  the  cost  of  the  free  men  of  the  North,  who 
desired  to  be  themselves  the  sellers  of  their  own  labor,  or  its  products.  In 
proof  that  such  has  been  the  fact,  we  propose  now  to  review  the  votes  of  Con 
gress  in  relation  to  the  question  of  protection  or  non-protection  to  the  Ameri 
can  laborer. 

The  close  of  the  great  war  in  Europe  brought  with  it  intense  agricultural 
distress.  The  foreign  market  for  breadstuff's  died  away,  and  simultaneously 
therewith  the  domestic  market  that  had  been  made  by  our  manufacturing 
establishments  was  closed.  The  manufacturers  themselves  were  ruined.  The 
people  of  the  South  had  then  no  doubts  of  the  constitutionality  of  protection. 
Anxious  to  secure  themselves  against  the  competition  of  the  people  of  India, 
they  gladly  united  with  those  of  the  agricultural  States  in  the  establishment 
of  a  system  of  minimums  upon  cotton  and  woollen  goods,  and  the  bill  for  that 
purpose  passed  through  the  senate  with  but  a  single  dissenting  vote  from 
south  of  Maryland.  When,  in  1818,  it  was  proposed  to  prolong  the  duration 
of  the  protection  thus  afforded,  Baldwin  of  Pennsylvania,  Clay  of  Kentucky, 
and  Lowndes  of  South  Carolina,  were  found  voting  together  in  the  affirmative. 

The  period  that  followed  was  one  of  ruin  throughout  the  Middle  and  North 
ern  States.  Flour  sold  in  Pittsburg  at  $1  25  per  barrel,  while  iron  was  so 
high  that  it  required  seventy,  if  not  even  eighty  barrels  of  flour  to  pay  for  a 
ton  of  bars.  From  day  to  day,  the  farmers  came  more  arid  more  to  appreciate 
the  truth  of  Franklin's  doctrines,  as  given  in  the  following  extract  from  one 
of  his  letters  dated  in  1771  : — 


22 

"Every  manufacturer  encouraged  in  our  country,  makes  part  of  a  market  for  pro 
visions  within  ourselves,  and  saves  so  much  money  to  the  country  as  must  otherwise 
be  exported  to  pay  for  the  manufactures  he  supplies.  Here  in  England  it  is  well  known 
and  understood  that,  wherever  a  manufacture  is  established  which  employs  a  number 
of  hands,  it  raises  the  value  of  lands  in  the  neighboring  country  all  around  it,  partly 
by  the  greater  demand  near  at  hand  for  the  produce  of  the  land ;  and  partly  from  the 
plenty  of  money  drawn  by  the  manufacturers  to  that  part  of  the  country.  It  seems, 
therefore,  the  interest  of  all  our  farmers  and  owners  of  lands,  to  encourage  our  young 
manufactures  in  preference  to  foreign  ones  imported  among  us  from  distant  countries." 

From  day  to  day  it  became  better  understood  that  Jefferson  had  been 
in  the  right  when  he  declared  that  our  true  policy  was  to  "  place  the  manu 
facturer  by  the  side  of  the  agriculturist;"  and  thus  it  came  that,  in  1824,  a 
new  effort  was  made  to  protect  the  producer  of  food  by  bringing  the  con 
sumer  to  his  neighborhood.  The  tariff  of  that  year  was  passed  by  the  follow 
ing  vote : — 

For.  Against. 

Free-labor  States          ...     88  32 

Slave-labor      "  ...     19  70 

107  102 

The  vote  against  it  from  the  free  States  was,  to  a  great  extent,  from  the 
shipping  States  of  New  England,  while  of  the  southern  vote  for  it  a  large 
portion  came  from  Kentucky,  always  the  most  northern  in  feeling  of  the 
slave  States.  Deducting  the  vote  of  the  States  immediately  adjoining  Mason 
and  Dixon's  Line  and  the  Ohio,  it  will  be  found  that  the  advocates  of  cheap 
labor  went  almost  solidly  against  protection. 

The  tariff  of  1828  followed,  and  here  the  vote  was  as  follows  : — 

For.  Against. 

Free-labor  States         ...     88  29 

Slave-labor     «  ...     17  65 

105  94 

The  period  which  followed  the  passage  of  this  tariff  was  one  of  greater  pros 
perity  than  this  country  had  then  ever  known.  The  revenue  was  so  abundant 
that  it  became  necessary  to  abolish  the  duties  upon  coffee,  tea,  and  various 
other  commodities  consumed  by  the  laborers  of  the  North ;  and  yet,  notwith 
standing  this  reduction,  the  public  debt  which,  at  the  opening  of  1829  had 
Stood  at  nearly  sixty  millions,  was  finally  paid  off  in  1834. 

The  advocates  of  cheap  labor  had  been,  as  we  see,  almost  unanimous 
against  the  passage  of  this  act,  and  almost  equally  unanimous  did  they  prove 
in  denouncing  it  after  its  operation  had  commenced.  It  was  the  tariff  of 
"  abominations"  for  them,  for  it  tended  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  laborer, 
and  they  desired  to  purchase  bone,  muscle,  and  sinew  in  the  form  of  laborers. 
Mr.  McDuffie  undertook  to  prove,  by  his  "  forty  bale  theory,"  that  the  South 
paid  all  the  expenses  of  government,  and  he  and  Mr.  Calhoun  finally  succeeded 
in  persuading  the  people  of  South  Carolina  that  protection  was  unconstitutional, 
and  that  they  had  a  right  to  nullify  and  set  at  defiance  the  law  by  virtue  of 
which  the  revenue  was  then  collected — and  yet  Mr.  Calhoun  had  been,  him 
self,  one  of  the  strongest  advocates  for  protecting  the  cotton  of  South  Carolina 
in  our  markets  from  all  interference  by  the  cotton  of  India. 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  did  tne  people  of  the  Union  commit  the  serious 
error  of  recognizing  the  right  of  the  minority  to  dictate  law  to  the  majority. 


23 

South  Carolina,  the  State  that,  of  all  others,  recognizes  the  existence  of  the 
smallest  amount  of  rights  among  her  own  free  white  men — the  State  that  of 
all  others  exhibits  in  its  worst  form  the  evils  of  an  aristocracy — dictated  to 
the  Union  that  it  should  fall  back  from  the  ground  it  had  occupied,  and  return 
to  a  strictly  horizontal  tariff  of  twenty  per  cent.,  abandoning  at  once  and  forever 
all  idea  of  protecting  the  free  cultivators  of  the  North  in  their  efforts  to  secure 
to  themselves  a  home  market  for  the  products  of  their  labor  and  their  land. 
The  compromise  tariff  of  1833  was  passed,  and  thus  the  system  that  had  been 
built  up  at  the  cost  of  so  much  effort,  was  almost  at  once  prostrated.  Slave- 
labor  had  carried  the  day  against  free-labor.  The  men  who  wished  to  buy 
laborers  cheaply  had  achieved  a  victory  over  the  men  who  wished  to  sell  their 
own  labor,  and  to  sell  it  dearly. 

It  was  a  great  mistake,  and  the  consequences  soon  became  apparent.  Mills 
and  furnaces  were  no  longer  built.  Importations  were  large,  and  within  four 
years  the  banks  throughout  the  Union  stopped  payment.  The  ensuing  four 
years  were  years  of  loss  and  ruin.  The  power  to  purchase  foreign  goods 
declined,  and  the  revenue  fell  off  so  greatly  that  in  less  than  nine  years  from 
the  date  of  the  final  discharge  of  a  public  debt  upon  which  we  had  been  pay 
ing  an  interest  of  three  per  cent.,  the  agents  of  the  government  were  seen 
knocking  at  the  doors  of  all  the  banking-houses  of  London  and  Paris,  Ham 
burg  and  Amsterdam,  and  asking  for  a  loan  at  six  per  cent.,  and  asking  it  in 
vain.  What  were  the  losses  of  the  people  in  those  awful  days  we  need 
scarcely  state,  for  they  arc  yet  fresh  in  the  recollection  of  most  of  our  readers. 
It  was  then  for  the  first  time  was  heard  in  the  streets  of  our  cities — 

The  cry  of  sober,  industrious,  orderly  men:   "Give  me  work!  only  give  me  work; 

MAKE  YOUR  OWN  TERMS — MYSELF  AND  FAMILY  HAVE  NOTHING  TO  EAT  !" 

Thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  such  cases  then  occurred,  and  by  those 
who  can  now  recall  to  mind  the  state  of  affairs  that  then  existed,  it  will  not 
be  deemed  extraordinary  that  we  should  state  our  belief  that  the  cost  to  the 
people  of  the  free  States  of  one  such  year  as  1841-42,  was  more  than  the 
value  of  the  trade  with  the  slave  States,  for  which  we  are  dependent  on  the 
Union,  in  half  a  century.  This  state  of  things  had  brought  with  it,  how 
ever,  a  remedy  in  the  change  of  public  opinion  that  had  been  produced.  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  the  "northern  man  with  southern  principles" — the  advocate  of 
the  policy  which  looks  to  the  extension  of  slavery — had  been  defeated,  and 
the  people  called  for  a  change  of  measures.  Then,  however,  for  the  first  time 
was  the  slave-labor  policy  advocated  as  a  party  measure,  and  in  the  division 
that  then  was  had  in  Congress,  the  votes  of  both  North  and  South  were  less 
unanimous  than  they  previously  had  been,  as  is  here  shown  : — 

For.  Against. 

Free-labor  States          ...     83  49 

Slave-labor          .        .       V        .     33  62 

116  111 

The  tariff  of  1842  went  into  operation,  and  its  effect  was  almost  electric. 
Credit  was  re-established — mills  and  furnaces  were  built,  and  the  people  were 
once  more  enabled  to  purchase  and  pay  for  foreign  merchandise.  Public  and 
private  revenue  increased,  and  within  four  years  from  the  date  of  this  triumph 
of  the  sellers  of  labor  over  those  who  desired  to  buy  slave  laborers,  the  pros 
perity  of  the  country  had  attained  a  higher  uoint  than  had  ever  before  been 
known. 

This,  however,  did  not  suit  the  advocates  of  the  slave-labor  policy.     Then, 


24 

as  now,  they  desired  that  the  free  laborer  should  be  cheap,  and  a  crusade  was 
gotten  up  against  protection,  among  the  most  active  promoters  of  which  were 
the  people  of  Virginia,  whose  chief  manufacture  is  that  of  negroes  for  exportation, 
and  who  are  protected  in  this  department  of  trade  by  an  absolute  prohibition 
of  all  competition  from  abroad.  This  prohibition  they  have  always  regarded  as 
constitutional,  because  it  enables  them  to  sell  negroes  at  a  thousand  dollars 
that  might  be  imported  from  the  Coast  of  Africa  for  a  hundred,  and  yet  they 
deny  to  the  free  laborer  of  the  North  any  right  to  protection  to  further 
extent  than  can  be  obtained  by  aid  of  duties  imposed  exclusively  with  a  view 
to  the  raising  of  revenue.  To  carry  their  views  into  effect,  it  was  deemed 
necessary  to  extend  the  area  of  slavery  by  incorporating  Texas  within  the 
Union — a  measure  that  was  carried  out  by  aid  of  "  northern  men  with 
southern  principles/'  so  well  described  by  the  Charleston  Mercury,  as  "huck 
sters  in  politics/'  always  ready  to  sell  themselves  and  their  constituents  when 
the  advocates  of  cheap  labor  are  seen  to  need  assistance.  Texas  in  the  Union 
furnished  two  senatorial  votes,  and  by  aid  of  those  votes,  added  to  the  Senate 
in  defiance  of  the  Constitution,  the  tariff  of  '42  was  repealed,  and  that  of  '46 
substituted  in  its  place.  The  advocates  of  slavery  were  thus  triumphant,  but 
the  consequences  to  the  free  laborer  of  the  North  were  speedily  seen  in  a 
diminished  demand  for  labor.  Mills  and  furnaces  were  everywhere  closed, 
and  their  owners  were  ruined;  but  the  object  of  the  South,  the  cheapening  of 
free  labor,  was  thereby  accomplished. 

In  another  paper  we  shall  give  some  of  the  details  of  the  working  of  this 
southern  system ;  but,  in  the  mean  time,  will  ask  our  readers  to  reflect  upon 
the  fact  that,  for  more  than  fifteen  out  of  the  last  twenty  years,  the  men  who 
buy  laborers,  have  had  the  control  of  the  policy  of  the  government,  to  the 
entire  exclusion  of  the  men  who  wish  to  sell  their  own  labor.  "  Southern 
interests"  have  had,  during  that  time,  as  the  Charleston  Patriot  most  truly 
observes,  "  the  mastery  in  Congress,"  and  "  the  government,  although  hostile 
in  its  incipiency,  to  slavery,  and  starting  into  political  being  with  a  strong 
bent  towards  abolition,  yet  afterwards" — that  is,  since  1833 — "so  changed 
its  policy  that  its  action  has  fostered  the  slave-holding  interest,  and  swelled 
it,"  by  aid  of  war  or  purchase,  "from  six  to  fifteen  States,  and  from  a  feeble 
and  sparse  population  to  one  of  ten  millions." 

How  has  this  been  accomplished?  By  aid  of  taxes  paid  by  the  North  for 
the  purchase  of  land  in  the  South,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  the  fleets  anil 
armies  required  for  the  protection  of  southern  men  and  interests  connected 
with  the  occupation  of  the  lands  so  purchased.  The  people  of  the  North 
have  paid  at  least  one  dollar  per  head,  per  annum,  more  than  would  have  been 
required  had  they  stood  alone,  and  this  they  have  done  that  Florida  might  be 
purchased  and  cleared,  and  that  Texas  might  be  converted  from  free  Mexican 
territory  into  one  or  more  slave  States;  and  they  are  now  required  to  agree  to 
the  payment  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  millions  for  the  conversion  of  the 
Mesilla  Valley  into  slave  territory,  and  for  the  prevention  of  the  Africaniza 
tion  of  Cuba.  The  more  land  they  buy  the  greater  will  be  the  power  of  the 
South,  and  yet  no  northern  politician  dares  propose  to  increase  the  power  of  the 
free  laborers  of  the  North  by  the  acceptance,  in  free  gift,  of  Nova  Scotia,  New 
Brunswick,  and  the  Canadas,  with  their  two  and  a  half  millions  of  hard-work 
ing,  instructed,  and  economical  population.  The  South  may  buy  land  to  be 
filled  with  slaves  whose  votes,  through  their  masters,  shall  govern  the  North ; 
but  the  latter  may  not  accept  laj^d  covered  with  men,  because  those  men  will 
then  vote  for  themselves. 

We  see,  then;  that  the  Union  is  maintained  at  the  cost  of  taxation  to  the 


25 

North  twice  greater  than  would  be  required  for  the  North  alone  It  is  main 
tained  at  the  cost  of  relinquishing  all  right  to  self-government  m  this  important 
matter  of  protection  to  free  laborers.  What  is  its  value  has  been  shown.  We 
ask  our  readers  to  compare  the  forty  cents  per  head  gained  by  the  Union 
with  the  many  dollars  per  head  that  it  costs,  and  determine  for  themselves 
the  justice  of  the  assertion  of  the  South,  that  the  continuance  of  the  connec 
tion  is  of  "  such  inestimable  worth"  to  the  North  that,  however  disagreeable 
may  be  the  purchase  of  Cuba  or  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  the 
bitter  pills  must  yet  be  swallowed.  And  let  them  also  determine  what  regard 
is  to  be  paid  to;  and  what  terror  is  to  be  felt  at,  the  menace  of  dissolution. 


THE  SOUTH  AND  NORTHERN  INTERESTS. 

The  vast  majority  of  the  people  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  has 
always  believed  with  Franklin,  Washington,  and  Jefferson,  that  protection 
tended  to  increase  the  value  of  labor  and  land,  and  to  enrich  both  laborer  and 
land  owner.  Whether  right  or  wrong  in  this,  the  votes  of  their  representa 
tives  have,  on  all  occasions,  proved  that  the  belief  existed;  and  it  does, 
certainly,  exist  to  so  great  an  extent  that  were  a  vote  to  be  now  taken  on  the 
question  whether  protection  should  be  maintained  or  abandoned,  apart  from 
all  other  issues,  an  overwhelming  majority  would  be  found  favorable  to  its 
maintenance.  Such  being  their  belief,  it  would  seem  to  be  right  and  proper  that 
they  should  be  enabled  to  act  in  accordance  with  it ;  and  yet,  although  almost 
thrice  as  numerous  as  the  whites  of  the  slave  States,  they  have  rarely  been 
allowed  to  exercise  the  slightest  influence  upon  the  action  of  government  in 
reference  to  this  most  important  subject.  W7hy  they  have  been  so  is,  that  in 
the  slave  States  every  white  person  votes  for  Ms  properly  as  well  as  for  him 
self;  while  in  the  free  ones  men  vote  for  themselves  alone.  In  the  House  of 
Representatives,  five  millions  of  southern  whites  counterbalance  seven  millions 
of  northern  ones;  and  in  the  Senate,  the  taxes  paid  by  the  North  for  the  pur 
chase  and  protection  of  Louisiana,  Florida,  Arkansas,  Texas,  and  Missouri, 
are  represented  by  ten  senatorial  votes,  and  thus  it  is  that  southern  property 
and  northern  contributions  for  its  purchase  are  made  to  work  for  the  enslave 
ment  of  northern  men. 

At  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the  tariff  of  1828,  southern  men  like  Madi 
son  and  Jackson  were  still  of  the  belief  that  protection  was,  in  a  high  degree, 
advantageous  to  the  country.  The  latter  had  then  but  recently  give*n  to  the 
world,  in  the  letter  to  Dr.  Coleman,  his  opinion  that  the  country  had  been  "too 
long  dependent  on  British  merchants,"  and  that  all  that  was  required  for 
assuring  its  independence  was,  that  we  should  adopt  a  policy  tending  to  enable 
a  few  hundred  thousand  more  persons  to  become  consumers  of  agricultural  pro 
ducts,  thereby  diminishing  to  the  same  extent  the  number  dependent  exclusively 
upon  agriculture  for  subsistence.  No  one,  however  bigoted  an  advocate  of 
British  free  trade,  can,  as  we  think,  now  read  that  letter  without  being  strongly 
impressed  with  the  correctness  of  the  views  of  its  distinguished  author,  south 
ern  as  he  was.  Neither  can  any  one  compare  the  condition  of  the  country 
in  1833  with  that  which  had  existed  but  half  a  dozen  years  before,  without 
arriving  at  the  conclusion  that  a  continuance  of  what  was  then  deemed  the 
democratic  policy  would  long  before  this  time  have  placed  the  cotton,  woollen, 
and  iron  manufactures  in  a  condition  no  longer  to  need  protection.  The 
democracy  of  that  time  had,  however,  never  heard  of  the  idea  that  the  ex 
istence  of  a  servile  class,  whose  members  were  liable  to  be  bought  and  sold, 


26 

was  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  republican  government.  It  has  been  since 
discovered  by  those  South  Carolina  philosophers,  at  whose  command  the  tariff  of 
1828  was  repealed.  That  change  was  followed  by  speculation  and  bankruptcy, 
and  by  ruin  to  an  extent  rarely  exceeded  in  any  country — the  consequence  of 
southern  policy.  Once  again,  in  1842,  did  the  northern  policy  of  protection 
to  the  free  laborer  prevail,  but  years  were  then  required  to  repair  the  damage 
that  had  been  produced,  and  during  those  years  the  free  cultivators  had  to 
suffer  from  the  loss  resulting  from  large  supplies  of  food  and  wool,  small  mar 
kets,  and  consequent  low  prices  of  all  they  had  to  sell.  Furnaces  and  mills 
were  built,  but  time  was  required  to  build  them,  and  when  built,  years  were 
necessary  for  giving  to  those  who  worked  in  them  the  instruction  needed  for 
the  advantageous  performance  of  their  duties.  The  skilled  laborers  of  1833 
had  been  dispersed  by  southern  policy,  and  thus  had  been  sacrificed  an 
amount  of  northern  capital  ten  times  greater  than  could  be  replaced  in  a  simi 
lar  time  by  the  profits  of  southern  trade.  We  beg  our  readers  to  look  back 
and  compare  for  themselves  the  high  position  occupied  in  1833  with  the  de 
graded  one  in  which  the  country  stood  in  1842,  and  then  to  determine  if  the 
losses  of  that  period  were  not  greater  than  would  be  compensated  by  even 
half  a  century  of  connection  with  a  people  who,  being  buyers  of  laborers, 
believe  in  the  advantage  resulting  from  the  enslavement  of  the  laborer. 

In  the  five  years  that  followed  the  passage  of  the  act  of  1842,  the  produc 
tion  of  iron  grew,  as  was  stated  by  Mr.  Walker,  to  more  than  800,000  tons, 
or  nearly  four  times  the  quantity  produced  in  1842.  The  consumption  of 
cotton  grew  from  200,000  bales  to  half  a  million,  and  manufactures  of  all 
other  kinds  grew  with  vast  rapidity.  A  demand  was  thus  made  for  labor, 
to  be  applied  to  the  building  of  mills  and -furnaces,  the  opening  of  mines,  the 
construction  of  machinery,  and  to  the  making  of  cloth,  iron,  and  other  com 
modities,  far  exceeding  a  hundred  millions  of  dollars  a  year  j  and  the  necessary 
result  of  this  was,  that  there  was  no  longer  heard,  as  in  1841-42,  the  cry  of 
"  Give  me  work  !  Only  give  me  work !  Make  your  own  terms,  my  wife  and 
family  have  nothing  to  eat."  On  the  contrary,  the  demand  for  labor  of  every 
kind,  skilled  and  unskilled,  increased  so  much  more  rapidly  than  the  supply 
that  wages  rose  greatly,  and  with  every  step  in  this  progress,  there  was  an 
enlarged  power  on  the  part  of  each  member  of  this  army  of  laborers  to  pur 
chase  the  fruits  of  the  farm,  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  farmer.  Never 
was  a  resuscitation  so  rapid  and  so  complete ;  and  it  was  a  direct  consequence 
of  the  exercise  by  the  free  people  of  the  Union,  of  the  right  of  the  majority 
to  direct «the  policy  of  the  country.  Free  labor  had  this  time  triumphed  over 
slave  labor  and  its  owners ;  but  this  did  not  suit  the  gentlemen  who  are  now 
so  anxious  to  insure  the  stability  and  permanence  of  slavery  by  giving  a  hun 
dred  millions  of  dollars  for  the  purchase  of  Cuba,  or  making  war  to  acquire  it 
at  still  heavier  cost. 

The  then  existing  policy  tended  to  strengthen  the  free  laborers,  and  therefore 
was  it  seen  that  it  must  be  broken  down  ;  but  this  object  could  not  be  accom 
plished  without  an  enlargement  of  the  slave  territory.  Texas  must  be  brought 
into  the  Union,  as  she  would  give  two  more  Senators,  representing  a  State  in 
which  men  were  held  as  property.  That  done,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
found  little  difficulty  in  furnishing  abundant  arguments  favorable  to  the  slave- 
labor  policy.  Addressing  himself  to  the  farmers,  he  assured  them  that  their 
revenues  were  largely  decreased  by  the  enormous  advance  on  manufactured 
goods  consequent  upon  protection ;  but  when  he  spoke  of  the  public  revenue, 
he  assured  them  that  prices  were  falling,  and  there  was  danger  that  importa 
tions  would  fall  off,  and  that  a  direct  tax  might  be  required  for  the  mainte- 


27 

nance  of  the  government.  It  was  the  fable  of  the  wolf  and  the  lamb  over 
again.  The  free-labor  policy  was  to  be  reversed,  and  if  one  reason  would  not 
answer,  another  could  be  made  that  would.  The  advocates  of  slavery  had 
obtained  power  by  aid  of  two  votes  dragged  into  the  Senate  in  defiance  of  the 
Constitution,  and  for  the  purpose  of  depriving  the  people  of  the  North  of  all 
control  over  their  own  actions  in  reference  to  the  important  question  whether 
laborers  should  be  slaves  or  freemen. 

Four  years  later  the  production  of  iron  had  fallen  below  half  a  million  of 
tons,  when  it  should  have  reached  twelve  hundred  thousand,  if  not  a  million 
and  a  half,  and  the  domestic  consumption  of  cotton  had  fallen  off  a  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  bales,  when  it  should  have  increased  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand,  and  would  have  so  increased  but  for  the  determination  of  the  slave 
power  to  direct  the  whole  movement  of  the  government.  Before  this  day, 
the  production  of  iron  would  have  reached  two  millions  of  tons,  and  the  con 
sumption  of  cotton  a  million  of  bales,  while  the  woollen  and  other  manufac 
tures  would  have  attained  a  corresponding  development,  and  we  should  now  be 
independent  of  all  the  world  for  hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  of  the  commodi 
ties  for  which  we  have  been  giving  bonds  to  the  amount  of  hundreds  of  mil 
lions  of  dollars,  until  our  credit  has  been  so  far  affected  that  they  can  now 
with  difficulty  be  sold,  and  only  at  prices  so  low  as  to  secure  the  payment  of 
enormous  interest. 

What,  however,  it  will  be  asked,  should  we  be  doing  with  all  this  enormous 
mass  of  iron,  cloth,  and  other  commodities  ?  In  answer,  we  say  that  we  should 
be  consuming  it.  Had  the  manufacture  of  iron  been  permitted  to  grow  as  it 
was  growing  in  1846,  the  farmers  and  planters  of  the  country  would  now  be 
supplied  at  fifty  dollars,  instead  of  having  to  pay  seventy  or  eighty,  and  they 
would  be  making  two  miles  of  railroad  where  now  they  are  making  one, 
and  buying  two  dollars'  worth  of  agricultural  machinery  for  every  one  they 
now  can  purchase.  Increased  facilities  for  going  to  market,  and  the  presence 
of  markets  among  the  mines,  furnaces,  and  factories  that  would  now  be  found 
among  all  the  States  from  Maine  to  Texas,  would  be  rendering  their  labor 
twice  more  valuable,  and  enabling  them  to  purchase  twice  the  cloth  they  now 
can  buy.  When  men  produce  largely  and  exchange  readily,  they  can  con 
sume  largely.  The  only  difficulty  now  in  the  way  of  doubling  the  consump 
tion  of  manufactures,  is  the  fact  that  more  than  half  of  the  products  of  agri 
cultural  labor  are  eaten  up  in  transportation  to  the  place  at  which  they  are  to 
be  exchanged  for  iron  and  cloth.  Were  the  mines  of  Missouri  and  Illinois, 
Ohio,  and  Pennsylvania  now  in  full  operation,  the  farmers  of  those  States 
would  be  producing  far  more  than  at  this  time  they  do  produce,  and  obtaining 
twice  as  much  iron  and  twice  as  much  cloth  for  every  bushel  of  grain  they  had 
to  sell. 

Of  these  mighty  benefits,  and  of  the  increased  power,  freedom,  and  popular 
progress  that  would  have  resulted  from  them,  the  North  has  been  deprived 
by  the  domination  of  slave  owners  in  our  national  councils.  And  now  the 
freemen  of  these  States  are  called  on  to  join  in  extending  that  domination, 
and  giving  it  such  power  that  it  can  never  be  removed.  Will  they  lend  them 
selves  to  the  base  and  unholy  schemes  of  those  who  would  fain  reduce  all 
laborers  to  the  weakness,  ignorance,  and  stagnation  of  bondage  ? 

PROTECTION  AND  SOUTHERN  INTERESTS. 

We  are  told,  however,  that  protection  is  adverse  to  the  interests  of  the  men 
whose  property  consists  of  men,  women,  and  children,  and  who  raise  cotton. 


28 

In  answer,  we  say  that  the  real  interests  of  the  South  are  as  much  promoted 
by  protection  as  are  those  of  the  North,  and  that  nothing  but  its  absurd  jealousy, 
and  its  determination  to  grasp  at  power,  prevent  its  people  from  seeing  that 
such  is  the  fact.  It  is  protection  that  has  caused  the  domestic  consumption  of 
cotton  to  attain  its  present  large  amount,  the  consequence  of  which  is,  that  the 
quantity  required  to  be  forced  on  the  market  of  England  has  been  so  far 
lessened,  and  the  price  so  far  sustained.  Were  we  now  consuming  a  million 
of  bales,  as  we  should  be  doing  had  the  tariff  of  1842  been  maintained,  the 
quantity  going  to  that  market  would  be  less  by  three  or  four  hundred  thousand 
bales  than  it  is,  and  we  should  not  now  be  called  to  record  a  daily  decline  of 
price,  notwithstanding  a  diminution  in  the  amount  of  crop.  Protection  has 
largely -increased  the  market  for  cotton  in  France,  Belgium,  Germany,  Russia, 
and  Spain,  while  in  the  unprotected  countries  there  has  been  no  increase.  The 
direct  tendency  of  the  free  labor  policy  is  to  increase  the  market  for  cotton  by 
increasing  the  number  of  its  purchasers,  and  to  reduce  the  price  of  cotton  goods 
by  increasing  the  number  of  persons  who  have  cloth  to  sell.  Every  farmer 
knows  well  that  the  greater  the  competition  among  the  millers  the  higher  is 
the  price  of  wheat,  and  the  less  the  charge  for  converting  it  into  flour.  The 
object  of  protection  is  to  increase  the  number  of  persons  who  require  to  pur 
chase  food  and  wool,  and  to  sell  iron  and  cloth. 

Twenty  years  since,  Germany  exported  almost  all  her  wool,  and  imported 
nearly  all  the  cloth  and  the  iron  she  consumed.  Now  she  converts  her  food 
and  her  wool  into  cloth,  and  the  laborers  who  eat  food  and  wear  cloth  convert 
her  fuel  and  her  ores  into  iron;  the  consequence  of  which  is,  that  her  own 
people  are  so  cheaply  supplied  that  they  compete  with  England  for  the  supply  of 
foreign  markets.  That  country  has,  fortunately  for  it,  no  slave  power — no  men 
who  buy  and  sell  laborers — and  all  feel  that  it  is  for  their  interest  to  enhance 
the  value  of  the  laborer.  Throughout  Germany,  there  is  a  constant  tendency 
towards  an  extension  of  the  area  of  freedom;  whereas  here,  as  the  Charleston 
News  informs  us,  the  great  question  is,  whether  the  area  of  slavery  shall  or 
shall  not  be  extended.  In  protected  Austria,  serfdom  has  lately  been  abolished; 
whereas  our  whole  energies  are  at  this  moment  directed  towards  preventing  the 
enfranchisement  of  the  slaves  of  Cuba.  Protected  Russia  has  just  diminished 
by  one-third  the  labor  required  to  be  given  to  the  owner  of  land;  whereas  we 
are  anxious  to  enlarge  the  area  of  slavery  by  reintroducing  it  in  the  island  of 
Hayti,  as  the  means  required  for  establishing,  in  its  most  perfect  form,  a  re 
publican  government.  Freedom  grows  in  those  countries  in  which  the  farmers 
are  protected  in  their  efforts  to  draw  the  mechanic  to  their  sides,  and  it  grows 
nowhere  else;  and  therefore  it  is  that  British  free-trade  is  advocated  by  the  men 
who  purchase  bone,  muscle,  and  sinew,  in  the  form  of  laborers,  and  hold  in 
such  disesteem  the  freemen  of  the  North,  who  sell  their  own  labor. 

It  is  said,  however,  that  the  South  is  taxed  for  the  maintenance  of  these 
"hireling  laborers'7  of  the  North.  We,  on  the  contrary,  maintain  that  it  is  to 
the  skill  and  industry  of  the  North  that  the  South  is  indebted  for  the  main 
tenance  of  the  price  of  cotton,  and  that,  were  they  left  to  themselves,  they 
would  not  obtain  one-half  the  price  at  which  it  now  is  sold.  Further,  we  main 
tain  that  it  is  greatly  to  Northern  ingenuity  they  are  indebted  for  the  reduction 
in  the  price  of  cloth;  and  that,  were  they  left  to  themselves,  they  would  pay 
more  for  clothing  their  property,  while  obtaining  less  for  their  products.  It  is 
the  North  that  stands  between  them  and  ruin.  In  protecting  themselves  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  great  domestic  market,  the  farmers  of  the  Middle 
and  Northern  States  make  no  war  against  natural  obstacles.  Their  water- 
powers  are  as  good  as  those  of  Europe,  and  the  coal  and  iron  ore,  by  which 


29 

they  arc  everywhere  surrounded,  arc  as  accessible  as  are  those  of  England; 
and  the  only  difficulty  they  have  to  overcome  is  that  of  the  time  required  for 
the  perfect  establishment  of  a  manufacture,  by  the  proper  education  of  those 
required  to  be  engaged  in  it.  Skill  in  the  production  of  iron  or  of  cloth  is 
not  obtained  in  a  day,  but,  when  obtained,  it  is  never  lost,  except  where  mills 
and  furnaces  are  everywhere  closed,  as  was  the  case,  to  so  great  an  extent, 
under  Southern  policy,  in  1S36-'40,  and  1848-'5'2.  In  both  these  cases,  the 
work-people  who  had  acquired  skill  were  scattered  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven, 
and  in  both  the  work  of  instruction  has  required  to  be  recommenced  j  and  so 
will  it  ever  be  while  the  South  shall  continue  to  exercise  its  present  control 
over  all  the  operations  of  the  government. 

The  farmers  of  the  North  know  well  that  the  nearer  the  market  the 
greater  is  the  value  of  their  labor  and  their  land;  but  whenever  they 
undertake  to  govern  themselves,  and  endeavor  to  bring  the  market  to  their 
doors,  they  are  met  with  a  demand  to  pay  for  more  slave  territory,  to  be 
used  in  depriving  them  of  all  power  to  act  in  accordance  with  their  own 
views  of  their  true  interests.  They  are  asked  now  to  yield  up  Nebraska  on 
one  side,  and  purchase  Cuba  on  the  other,  and  for  what  purpose?  To 
rivet  their  chains  by  making  eight,  ten,  or  twelve  more  slave  votes  in  the 
Senate,  that  shall  refuse  them  protection  against  a  difficulty  that  tends 
steadily  to  diminish,  while  the  advocates  of  slavery  take  for  themselves 
protection  against  a  natural  obstacle  that  time  can  never  either  diminish 
or  destroy.  Cuba  and  Brazil  have  advantages  for  the  growth  of  sugar 
that  are  entirely  wanting  .in  Louisiana  and  Texas,  the  States  purchased  by 
the  government  for  the  extension  of  the  area  of  slavery.  In  the  one,  the 
cane  is  required  to  be  planted  but  once  in  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  and  the 
planter  makes  his  crop  at  any  time  that  suits  him;  whereas  in  the  others  it 
has  to  be  planted  annually,  and  must  be  cut  before  the  frost;  and  yet  the 
planter  is  well  content  with  the  protection  against  nature  that  he  now  enjoys, 
while  denying  the  propriety  of  any  protection  to  the  Northern  laborer,  who 
wars  not  against  nature,  but  only  against  those  difficulties  that  time  must  un 
questionably  remove.  The  people  of  the  North  pay  fourteen  millions  annu 
ally  for  the  same  quantity  of  sugar  that  they  could  have  from  Cuba  and  Brazil 
for  ten;  and  this  is  really  a  tax  upon  them,  for  they  enjoy  no  advantages  re 
sulting  from  it,  whereas  the  people  of  the  South  profit  by  Northern  protection, 
in  obtaining  more  for  their  cotton  and  paying  less  than  they  would  otherwise 
do  for  their  cloth  and  their  iron.  In  a  Northern  Union  there  would  be  no 
duty  on  sugar,  and  the  gain  to  the  people  of  the  North  from  the  abolition  of 
this  interference  with  the  trade  with  Cuba,  Brazil,  Hayti,  Liberia,  and  other 
sugar-producing  countries,  and  the  consequent  extension  of  trade  with  them, 
would,  as  we  believe,  be  fully  equal  to  all  the  profits  now  resulting  to  the  trade 
for  which  the  North  is  indebted  to  the  Union. 

That,  however,  is  but  a  small  portion  of  the  tax  paid  by  the  free  people  of 
the  North  for  the  maintenance  and  extension  of  slavery,  and  it  is  but  a  small 
part  of  the  cost  from  which  they  would  be  relieved  by  that  secession  which, 
according  to  the  Charleston  Mercury,  would  constitute  "the  real  triumph  of 
the  South."  Once  restored  to  the  exercise  of  the  right  to  govern  themselves, 
their  vast  treasures  of  fuel,  and  of  copper,  lead,  zinc,  iron,  and  other  ores  would 
be  developed,  and  the  men  employed  in  the  work  would  then  furnish  a  perma 
nent  market  for  food  thrice  greater  than  that  furnished  by  all  the  manufacturing 
countries  of  Europe.  Mark  Lane  would  then  cease  to  fix  the  prices  of  our 
farmers,  while  Wales  and  Staffordshire  would  cease  to  fix  the  price  of  iron, 
and  we  should  cease  to  issue  bonds  for  twenty-five  millions  a  year  to  pay  for 


30 

iron  to  bo  laid  over  the  great  coal  and  ore  regions  of  the  West.  The  products 
of  the  farm  would  then  increase  in  both  quantity  and  price,  while  cloth  and 
iron  would  be  far  cheaper  than  they  are  now.  Labor  would  then  be  more 
productive  of  all  the  commodities  required  by  the  laborer,  who  would  then 
enjoy  advantages  to  which  he  now  can  make  no  claim,  because  the  whole 
policy  of  the  country  is,  and  long  has  been,  controlled  by  men  who  wish  to 
purchase  labor,  and  desire  that  bone,  muscle,  and  sinew  may  be  cheaply  sold. 
Let  our  readers  now  estimate  for  themselves  the  annual  loss  to  which  our 
farmers  are  subjected  by  reason  of  the  distance  of  the  markets  to  which  they 
are  forced  to  carry  their  products,  because  of  the  difficulty,  under  southern 
policy,  of  bringing  into  activity  the  coal,  the  various  ores,  and  the  vast  water 
powers  of  the  Union,  and  see  if  it  will  be  covered  by  ten,  or  even  twenty 
dollars  a  head.  To  this  let  them  add  the  annual  loss  from  taxation  for  ex 
tending  the  area  of  slavery  by  the  purchase  of  territory,  for  the  projected 
purchase  of  the  Mesilla  Valley  and  Cuba,  for  the  maintenance  of  fleets  and 
armies  required  by  these  new  possessions,  and  the  further  loss  from  the  fact 
that  the  construction  of  harbors  and  the  improvement  of  rivers  are,  by  the 
advocates  of  slavery,  deemed  to  be  unconstitutional — and  let  them  then  de 
termine  if  the  estimate  that  has  been  submitted  to  them  of  the  cost  of  the 
Union  is  not  below  the  truth. 


NORTH  AND  SOUTH. 

We  beg  our  readers,  now,  to  compare  with  us  the  relative  position  of  North 
ern  and  Southern  States  and  cities.  Sixty  years  since,  Virginia  stood  at  the 
head  of  the  Union,  with  ten  representatives  in  Congress,  while  this  State  had 
only  six.  Where  stand  they  now  ?  New  York  has  thirty-three  and  Virginia 
thirteen.  Sixty  years  since,  South  Carolina  had  five  representatives,  while 
Ohio  had  scarcely  a  white  inhabitant.  Now,  the  former  has  still  her  old 
number  of  five,  while  the  latter  has  twenty-one.  In  that  time,  Massachusetts 
has  grown  from  eight  to  eleven ;  Pennsylvania  from  eight  to  twenty-five,  and 
even  little  New  Jersey,  which  then  had  only  four,  now  balances  the  State 
which  furnishes  the  great  aristocracy  of  the  land  in  its  Pinckneys,  Rutledges, 
Cheveses,  and  Gadsdens.  At  that  time,  this  city,  Norfolk,  and  Charleston, 
might  fairly  have  disputed  the  chances  of  commercial  greatness  that  hung 
upon  the  future;  but  where  stand  they  now?  At  the  last  census,  Charleston 
had  42,806  inhabitants,  having  increased  in  ten  years  precisely  1,669.  Nor 
folk  had  14,320,  or  8,400  more  than  she  had  in  1840,  while  New  York  and 
Brooklyn  had  risen  to  more  than  600,000. 

We  are  told,  however,  that  this  is  all  due  to  the  action  of  the  Federal  Go 
vernment;  that  "the  immense  commercial  resources  of  the  South  are  amongst 
the  most  startling  and  certain  resources  in  all  emergencies;"  that  "if  there 
was  no  tariff  of  any  kind,  and  absolute  free  trade,  the  southern  seaports  would 
in  a  quarter  of  a  century  surpass  the  northern  ones  not  only  in  imports  and 
exports,  but  also  in  population  and  the  arts," — and  that  the  way  to  bring 
about  this  reign  of  free-trade  and  prosperity  is  to  tax  all  merchandise  imported 
from  northern  ports,  or  in  northern  ships,  while  admitting  free  all  those  im 
ported  from  Europe,  or  in  southern  vessels.  Incredible  as  it  may  seem  to  our 
readers,  such  is  the  mode  we  find  advocated  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer  as  the 
one  required  for  the  establishment  of  perfect  free-trade. 

If,  however,  the  prosperity  of  New  York,  Massachusetts,  or  Pennsylvania, 
which  are  manufacturing  States,  has  really  been  due  to  the  tariff,  and  if  pro 
tection  is  injurious  to  agricultural  communities,  how,  we  would  ask,  can  we 


31 

account  for  the  growth  of  Indiana  and  Illinois,  which  arc  not  manufacturing 
States?  Agreeably  to  the  slavery  theory,  they  should  suffer  equally  with 
South  Carolina  and  Virginia,  and  yet  we  find  them  growing  to  almost  a  mil 
lion  each  of  population;  while  Arkansas,  almost  as  old,  has  less  than  200,000. 
Their  railroads  count  by  thousands  of  miles,  while  Arkansas  has  yet,  we  be 
lieve,  the  first  mile  of  road  yet  to  make.  Southern  men  can  scarcely  charge 
the  new  State  of  Wisconsin  with  protection,  and  yet,  she  bids  fair  to  have  a 
thousand  miles  of  railroad  before  Texas  shall  have  completed  the  first 
hundred  miles  of  her  first  road.  Telegraphs  abound  through  the  West 
and  Northwestern  States,  and  Ohio  presents  a  perfect  network  of  them; 
while  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia  present  to  view  little  more  than  a 
single  line,  and  that  maintained  almost  exclusively  by  the  transmission  of 
intelligence  across  them  from  northern  cities  to  New  Orleans.  Look  where  we 
may,  we  find  the  same  result ;  throughout  the  North  there  is  the  activity  of 
freedom  and  life,  while  throughout  the  South  there  is  the  palsy  of  slavery 
and  death. 

The  prosperity  of  the  Northwest  is,  however,  as  we  are  told,  also  due  to  the 
partiality  of  the  Federal  Government,  the  almost  exclusive  management  of 
which  has  been  so  generally  in  Southern  hands.  What  Massachusetts  and 
this  State  gain  from  the  tariff  is  made  up  to  the  newer  States  by  donations 
out  of  the  common  treasury  of  lands.  On  this  head  we  quote  from  the 
Richmond  Whiy : — 

"  Illinois  is  indebted  for  these  two  thousand  miles  of  railroad  to  the  bounty  of  the 
Federal  Government,  a  bounty  indulged  at  the  expense  of  the  Southern  States,  whose 
feebleness  and  decay  are  sneered  at.  Every  foot  of  these  roads  has  been  made  by 
appropriations  of  public  Iftnds.  Not  a  cent  has  come  out  of  the  pockets  of  the  people. 
And  railroads  are  not  the  only  favors  bestowed  upon  the  hireling  States.  Immense 
contributions  have  been  made  to  them  all,  for  schools  and  colleges.  We  dare  say, 
if  the  same  liberal  measure  had  been  dealt  out  to  the  slaveholding  States ;  if  their 
territory  had  been  permeated  by  canals  and  railroads,  and  schools  established  in  every 
neighborhood,  at  the  expense  of  the  Northern  States,  we,  too,  might  boast  of  our 
prosperity.  It  would  not  be  going  too  far  to  say,  that  Illinois  herself,  if,  in  addition 
to  the  millions  she  has  received  from  the  Federal  Treasury,  had  had  the  benefit  of 
slave  labor,  might  have  been  still  more  prosperous." 

In  reply  to  this,  a  contemporary  furnishes  the  following  abstract  of  a  report 
from  the  Department  of  the  Interior,  made  a  few  weeks  since,  showing  the 
donations  of  land  to  six  Western  free  States,  and  six  slave  States,  to  which 
we  beg  the  attention  of  our  readers  : — 

0.,  la.,  111.,  Mo.,  Ala.,  ML, 
Mich.,  Iowa,  La.,  Ark., 

Wisconsin.  Florida. 

Acres,  Acres. 

School  Lands     .        I    •  .  .    '     .  5/273,749  5,520,504 

Universities        .      "„..'-    ..         .  253,360  207,366 

Seats  of  Government           .    '     .  28,560  22,300 

Salines       .         .         .      j2T      .  261,045  161,230 

Internal  Improvement         .         .  1,569,449  2,600,000 

Roads        .         .         .         .  •    ,     .  251,355 

Canals  and  Rivers       .       '.         .  4,996,873  400,000 

Railroads  .                  ...  2,595,053  5,788,098 

Swamp  Lands     ....  11,265,333  24,533,020 

Individuals  and  Companies           .  60,981  17,839 

Military  Services                          .  20,167,763  5,716,974 

46,723,391  45,167,325 


32 

The  appropriations  here  appear  to  be  equal,  but  when  we  come  to  deduct 
the  lands  selected  by  individuals  who  had  their  choice  to  go  into  Southern  or 
Northern  States,  we  find  the  Southern  grants  for  public  purposes  to  be  forty 
millions  against  twenty-five  millions  of  Northern  ones.  Men  do  not  to  any 
extent  go  voluntarily  into  the  slave  States,  but  vast  numbers  leave  those 
States  to  settle  in  the  free  ones,  as  is  shown  in  the  fact  that  the  late  census 
exhibits  more  than  six  hundred  thousand  people  from  the  former  settled  in 
the  latter,  while  the  latter  exhibit  but  208,000  persons  from  the  former;  and 
if  we  deduct  from  them  the  number  settled  in  the  three  States  nearest  the 
free  ones,  Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Missouri,  which  must  belong  to  a  North 
ern  Union  whenever  formed,  we  shall  find  but  123,000  remaining,  or  about 
one  to  five. 

Freedom  is  attractive  and  slavery  is  repulsive.  Men  of  activity  and  intel 
ligence  seek  the  free  States,  leaving  the  old  slave  States  to  the  occupation  of 
men  whose  dreams  are  of  the  long-passed  days,  when  Virginia  was  "  the  An 
cient  Dominion/'  and  consoling  themselves  for  present  insignificance  by  para 
graphs  of  which  the  following,  taken  from  the  Richmond  Examiner,  is  a 
specimen : — 

Virginia,  in  this  confederacy,  is  the  impersonation  of  'the  w ell-born,  well-educated,  icell-bred 
aristocrat.  She  looks  down  from  her  elevated  pedestal  upon  her  parvenu,  ignorant, 
mendacious  Yankee  vilifiers  as  coldly  and  calmly  as  a  marble  statue.  Occasionally, 
in  Congress,  or  in  the  nominating  conventions  of  the  Democratic  party,  she  conde 
scends,  when  her  interests  demand  it,  to  recognize  the  existence  of  her  adversaries  at 
the  very  moment  when  she  crushes  them,  but  she  does  it  without  anger,  and  with  no 
more  hatred  of  them  than  a  gardener  feels  towards  the  insects  which  he  finds  it  ne 
cessary  occasionally  to  destroy. 

The  aristocracy  does  not  work.  The  democracy  does,  and  hence  it  is  that 
the  six  free  and  six  slave  States,  having  received  from  the  Treasury,  for  all 
purposes,  an  equal  quantity  of  land,  presented  to  view,  at  the  date  of  the  last 
census,  the  following  comparison  between  the  railroads  completed  and  in  pro 
gress  :— 

"  The   hireling   States"  The    aristocratic    States 

of  Ohio,  Indiana.  UK-  of  Missouri,   Alabama, 

nois,  Iowa,  Michigan,  Mississippi,  Louisiana, 

Wisconsin.  Arkansas,  Florida. 

Completed.     In  progress.  Completed.     In  progress. 

2,913    4,955  417     2.318 

A  similar  comparison,  now  made  out,  would  present  results  still  more  strik 
ing,  but  even  this  should  be  sufficient  to  satisfy  our  readers ;  first,  of  the  in 
significance  of  the  trade  offered  by  the  South  to  the  North  as  the  price  of 
union,  and  second,  that  the  enormous  difference  existing  is  not  due  to  any 
action  of  the  Federal  Government,  in  the  management  of  which  the  North 
has  so  uniformly  been  denied  the  slightest  control. 

We  are  told,  however,  that  the  North  must  cling  to  the  South  if  it  would 
not  return  to  "  the  original  poverty  and  weakness"  that  must  follow  a  disso 
lution  of  the  Union.  Let  us  look  at  this  proposition.  At  the  North,  every 
body  works.  At  the  South,  the  property  only  works.  Freemen  there  think 
work  disgraceful,  and  do  little  of  it.  At  the  North,  there  is  a  desire  to 
increase  the  value  of  labor  and  to  free  the  laborer.  At  the  South,  there  is 
a  universal  desire  to  extend  the  area  of  slavery,  and  to  keep  the  laborer  in 
a  state  of  slavery,  even  when  he  has  "blue  eyes  and  brown  hair,  and  might 
readily  pass  for  white."  At  the  North,  protection  tends  to  diversify  the 
employment  of  labor,  to  increase  the  demand  for  it,  and  to  increase  its 


33 

reward,  while  public  opinion  tends  towards  the  gratuitous  distribution  of 
public  land  among  the  actual  settlers  of  it,  and  the  establishment  of  a 
squatter  sovereignty.  At  the  South,  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  the  organ  of 
the  Virginia  aristocracy  above  described,  tells  its  readers  that  it  has  "  little 
hope  of  the  defeat  of  the  [Homestead]  bill.  The  conservatism  of  the  Senate/' 
as  it  continues — 

"Will  hardly  reject  so  plausible  an  appeal  to  popular  passion.  King  Caucus  is  no 
longer  monarch ;  the  more  soft,  subtle,  and  persuasive  Prince  of  Demagoguisin  now 
reigns  supreme  in  the  province  of  politics.  It  is  barely  possible  that  the  measure  may 
be  arrested  by  executive  veto." 

Northern  policy  is  attractive  of  immigration,  because  it  looks  thus  to  the  ele 
vation  of  the  laborer.  Immigration  is  always  largest  when  mills  and  furnaces 
are  being  built,  and  when  there  is  the  greatest  demand  for  labor,  and  it  always 
declines  as  mills  are  closed  and  furnaces  are  permitted  to  go  out  of  blast. 
Under  the  tariff  of  1828,  immigration  trebled,  and  by  1834  it  had  reached 
65,000;  after  which  it  remained  nearly  stationary  until  the  tariff  of  1842 
came  fully  into  operation,  when  it  commenced  to  increase  with  such  rapidity 
that  in  1847,  it  had  already  almost  reached  a  quarter  of  a  million,  the  point 
it  would  have  touched  ten  years  sooner,  had  the  people  of  the  North  been 
permitted  to  direct  the  operations  of  the  government,  in  accordance  with  the 
views  of  Franklin,  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Jackson — and  long 
before  the  present  time  it  would  have  reached  a  million. 

To  this,  however,  "the  impersonation  of  the  well-born,  well-educated,  and 
well-bred  aristocrat"  is  opposed.  It  dislikes  " squatter  sovereignty,"  and  holds 
in  great  contempt  the  people  of  "  the  hireling  States,"  who  sell  their  own 
labor,  while  looking  with  great  complacency  upon  the  operations  of  its  own 
people  engaged  in  feeding  corn  to  men,  women,  and  children,  to  be  sold  in 
Louisiana  and  Texas,  there  to  swell  "the  immense  commercial  resources  of  the 
South/7  which  constitute,  as  we  are  assured  in  the  Enquirer •,  "the  basis  of  the 
commerce  of  the  Universe."  It  would,  therefore,  if  it  could,  put  a  stop  to 
the  voluntary  immigration  of  free  men,  while  it  would  gladly  reopen  the 
African  slave-trade,  now  regarded  at  the  South  as  the  real  measure  of  civiliza 
tion. 

North  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  of  the  Ohio,  and  of  36°  30',  we  have 
land  sufficient  for  hundreds  of  millions  of  inhabitants.  We  need  population, 
and  the  surest  way  to  bring  it  is  to  afford  to  the  people  of  Europe  reason  for 
believing  that  by  coming  here  they  will  be  enabled  to  earn  higher  wages  than 
they  can  obtain  at  home,  and  enjoy,  in  greater  perfection,  the  advantages  of 
freedom.  Every  person  that  comes  here  is  worth  to  the  community  all  he 
cost  to  raise,  and  the  average  cost  of  the  men,  women,  and  children  we  import, 
is  certainly  not  less  than  a  thousand  dollars.  Were  these  people  black,  and 
did  they  come  from  Africa  to  southern  ports,  they  would  be  property,  and  the 
community  would  be  regarded  as  being  richer  by  at  least  five  hundred  dollars 
a  head,  because  of  their  importation.  If  so  there,  why  not  so  here  ?  To  the 
community  it  matters  not  who  is  the  owner  of  property,  provided  it  exists  and 
is  owned  among  themselves.  The  negro  is  the  property  of  another,  but  the 
free  immigrant  is  his  own  property,  and  hence  more  valuable  than  the  negro, 
and  every  such  person  constitutes  an  addition  to  the  wealth  of  the  community 
of  at  least  a  thousand  dollars.  Northern  policy,  even  as  it  is  now  carried  out, 
attracts  nearly  400,000  such  persons  annually,  few  or  none  of  whom  would 
come  under  an  entire  southern  policy,  and  to  this  vast  immigration  is  to  a 
great  extent  due  the  fact  that  in  a  single  western  State,  Illinois,  the  increase 
in  the  value  of  property  in  the  year  1853,  over  that  of  1852,  was  fifty-eight 
3 


34 

millions  of  dollars,  or  more  than  five  times  as  much  as  the  annual  value  of 
that  portion  of  our  trade  with  the  South  that  is  dependent  on  its  refraining 
from  executing  its  threats  of  dissolution. 

Had  the  northern  policy  been  fully  carried  out,  we  should  now  be  import 
ing  people  at  double  our  present  rate,  and  every  man  so  imported  would  be 
adding  to  the  value  of  southern  products,  by  consuming  thrice,  and  perhaps 
five  times,  as  much  cotton  and  sugar  as  he  consumed  at  home.  At  the  same 
time  they  would  be  adding  to  the  value  of  northern  land  and  labor  to  the 
extent  of  at  least  the  sum  we  have  named,  or  an  amount  of  four  hundred  mil 
lions  of  dollars,  being  more  than  twenty  dollars  per  head  of  the  present  popu 
lation  of  the  States  we  have  assigned  to  a  northern  Union.  Adding  this 
quantity  to  those  already  obtained,  we  feel  disposed  to  place  the  loss  of  the 
North,  from  the  continuance  of  the  Union,  at  about  forty  dollars  per  head ; 
while  the  gain  therefrom  does  not  exceed  forty  cents — the  difference,  or  $39  60 
per  head,  being,  as  we  think,  the  net  annual  loss  to  the  northern  States. 


THE  CASE  AS  IT  STANDS. 

We  have  now  in  those  States  more  than  seventeen  millions  of  people,  and 
if  we  add  thereto  the  population  of  the  British  provinces,  the  sum  will  be 
nearly  twenty  millions. .  Annexation  of  those  provinces  can  never  take  place 
while  we  shall  continue  so  busily  occupied  in  extending  the  area  of  slavery, 
to  which  the  people  of  Canada  are  so  much  opposed.  They  tell  us,  frankly, 
that  they  will  make  no  connection  with  us 

"That  will  empower  the  slave-driver  to  make  Canada  a  hunting-ground.  Human 
flesh  and  blood  shall  never  be  bartered  in  Canada  like  the  beasts  of  the  field.  The 
baying  of  the  bloodhounds  shall  never  echo  through  our  woods.  If  Mitchell  wants  'a 
plantation  of  fat  negroes  to  flog,'  he  will  have  to  seek  it  in  some  other  place  than 
Canada.  If  Canada  ever  becomes  a  State  of  the  Union,  it  will  not  be  until  its  soil  i? 
soaked  with  blood." — Toronto  Colonist. 

With  a  northern  Union  this  difficulty  could  have  no  existence,  and  the 
advantages  of  union  are  to  the  Provinces  so  great  that,  were  it  removed, 
annexation  would  follow  as  a  necessary  consequence. 

What,  then,  would  be  the  real  loss  resulting  from  a  secession  by  the  South 
with  a  view  to  carry  out  the  now  favorite  project  of  a  great  slave  republic,  em 
bracing  some  of  the  slave  States,  Cuba,  Brazil,  and  probably  Hayti,  whose 
people  would  be  re-enslaved  1  We  should  lose  the  companionship  of  five 
millions  of  white  men  who  give  seven  millions  of  votes,  and  thereby  deprive 
the  whole  free  people  of  the  North  of  all  control  over  their  own  actions,  while 
taxing  them  hundreds  of  millions  for  the  purchase  and  protection  of  territory 
sufficient  to  enable  themselves  to  hold  the  reins  of  government.  We  should, 
on  the  other  hand,  gain  a  connection  with  two  and  a  half  millions  of  free  people 
who  sell  their  own  labor,  and  therefore  desire  that  "the  hireling"  should  be 
largely  paid.  We  should  lose  a  connection  with  five  millions  who  differ  from 
us  in  all  our  modes  of  thought  in  regard  to  the  rights  of  man,  and  gain  a  con 
nection  with  half  that  number  who  agree  with  us  in  reference  to  that  important- 
subject.  We  should  lose  a  connection  with  men  who  look  only  to  exhaust 
ing  their  land  and  then  abandoning  it,  and  gain  one  in  which  every  man  is 
cultivating  his  own  homestead,  and  therefore  desirous  of  improving  it  for  the 
benefit  of  himself,  his  wife,  and  his  children,  and  ready  to  unite  with  us  in 
every  measure  tending  to  that  result.  We  should  lose  a  connection  with  a 
dead  body,  and  gain  one  with  a  living  man. 


35 

Further  than  this,  a  northern  Union,  pursuing  a  policy  tending  to  elevate 
the  laborer,  by  diversifying  and  increasing  the  demand  for  labor,  would  attract 
twice  the  number  of  immigrants  we  now  receive,  and  would  thus  add  so 
enormously  to  our  numbers  and  our  wealth,  that  we  hesitate  not  to  express 
our  full  belief  that  such  a  Union  would,  in  twenty  years  from  this  date,  be 
richer  and  more  populous  than  will  be  our  present  Union  if  it  continued  for 
that  time.  Stronger  it  would  certainly  be,  for  slavery  is  an  element  of  weak 
ness.  More  respectable  it  would  certainly  be,  for  we  cannot  command  the 
respect  of  the  world  while  appearing  everywhere  as  the  advocates  of  slavery, 
and  the  executors  of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  More  moral  would  it  be,  for  we 
do  not  covet  our  neighbor's  lands,  nor  would  we  make  of  himself  a  chattel. 
Examine  the  matter,  therefore,  as  we  may,  the  balance  of  profit  and  loss  seems 
to  us  to  be  in  favor  of  permitting  our  southern  friends  to  exercise  their  own 
judgments  as  to  the  time,  manner,  and  extent,  of  secession.  The  case,  as  it 
now  stands,  is  thus  stated  by  the  Charleston  Evening  News: — 

"  It  is  vain  to  disguise  it,  the  great  issue  of  *our  day  in  this  country  is,  slavery  or 
no  slavery.  The  present  phase  of  that  issue  is,  the  extension  or  non-extension  of  the 
institution,  the  foundations  of  which  are  broad  and  solid  in  our  midst.  Whatever  the 
general  measure — whatever  the  political  combinations — whatever  the  party  move 
ment — whatever  the  action  of  sections  at  Washington,  the  one  single,  dominant,  and 
pervading  idea,  solving  all  leading  questions,  insinuating  itself  into  every  polity, 
drawing  the  horoscopes  of  all  aspirants,  serving  as  a  lever  or  fulcrum  for  every 
interest,  class,  and  individuality — a  sort  of  directing  fatality,  is  that  master  issue.  As, 
in  despite  of  right  and  reason — of  organism  and  men — of  interests  and  efforts,  it  has 
become  per  se  political  destiny — why  not  meet  it?  It  controls  the  North,  it  controls 
the  South — it  precludes  escape.  It  is  at  last  and  simply  a  question  between  the  South 
and  the  remainder  of  the  Union,  as  sections  and  as  people.  All  efforts  to  give  it  other 
divisions,  to  solve  it  by  considerations  other  than  those  which  pertain  to  them  in 
their  local  character  and  fates,  to  divert  it,  to  confound  it  with  objects  and  designs  of 
a  general  "nature,  is  rendered  futile.  It  has  to  be  determined  by  these  real  parties, 
by  their  action  in  their  character  as  sections — inchoate  countries. 

Such  are  the  parties  to  this  great  question  of  the  enlargement  or  contraction 
of  the  freedom  of  man — "sections — inchoate  countries."  How  soon  they 
will  become  really  different  countries — enemies  in  war,  and  in  peace  friends — 
depends  upon  the  South,  which  has  for  thirty  years  threatened  secession,  and 
has  thus  far  been  conciliated  only  by  the  exercise  of  almost  unlimited  power 
to  buy  land  and  create  poor  slave  States  with  small  population  as  offsets  to 
large,  populous,  and  wealthy  free  States  at  the  North.  The  cup  of  concilia 
tion  has,  however,  been  drained,  and  if  the  Missouri  Compromise  be  now  re 
pealed,  even  the  dregs  will  scarcely,  we  think,  be  found  at  its  bottom.  That 
the  monstrous  Nebraska  Bill  can  become  a  law,  we  do  not  believe,  nor  can  we 
believe  that  southern  gentlemen  will  generally  be  found  advocating  such  an 
extraordinary  violation  of  faith ;  but  should  we  err  in  this,  and  should  the 
failure  of  this  new  attempt  at  the  enlargement  of  slave  territory  and  extension 
of  slave  power  be  followed  by  a  determination  on  the  part  of  the  South  to  in 
sist  on  their  right  of  secession,  why  the  only  answer  to  be  made  will  be  in 
the  words  of  Senator  Fessenden,  "  They  need  not  put  it  off  a  day  on  our 
account." 


VIRGINIA. 

For  thirty  years  the  South  has  threatened  to  dissolve  the  Union  unless  per 
mitted  to  control  its  commercial  policy,  to  tax  the  Northern  people  for  the 
purchase  of  land  and  the  maintenance  of  fleets  and  armies  required  for  its  own 


36 

use,  and  to  manufacture  States  like  Florida  and  Arkansas,  to  be  used  as  a  set- 
off  against  the  rapidly  growing  States  of  the  Northwest ;  and  now  we  are 
threatened  with  dissolution  unless  we  yield  up  Kansas  and  Nebraska  on  one 
hand,  and  pay  a  hundred  millions  for  Cuba  on  the  other.  What  is  the  profit 
and  what  the  loss  likely  to  result  to  the  North  from  the  practical  enforcement 
by  the  South  of  its  right  to  secession,  we  have  heretofore  endeavored  fairly  to 
place  before  our  readers,  and  if  the  balance  has  been  largely  against  the  Union, 
the  fault  lies  in  the  facts  themselves,  and  certainly  not  in  us.  There  is,  how 
ever,  as  we  are  told  by  The  Richmond  Enquirer,  "  another  and  most  import 
ant  relation  in  which  we  must  contemplate  the  dreadful  contingency  of  dis 
union  ;"  and  that  is  as  to  the  manner  in  which  it  would  affect  the  social  con 
dition  of  the  North  and  the  South.  The  statesmen  of  the  former,  as  The 
Enquirer  informs  its  readers,  "  have  never  displayed  any  high  order  of  admi 
nistrative  talent/'  and  it  greatly  fears  that,  deprived  of  the  aid  of  the  latter, 
the  North  must  fall  into  anarchy,  and  fail  entirely  in  every  effort  at  self- 
government  that  may  be  made.  l.(  Conservatism  is,"  as  we  are  assured,  "the 
controlling  element  in  the  social  system  of  the  South,"  and  to  such  an  extent 
that— 

"There  is  not  now  and  there  has  never  been  a  community  in  which  the  principles  of 
self-government  were  so  abundantly  developed  as  in  the  Southern  States  of  this  con 
federacy.  The  necessary  effect  of  the  institution  of  Slavery  is  to  impart  a  dignity,  a 
sobriety,  and  a  self-possession  to  the  character  of  the  dominant  race.  Taught  from 
childhood  to  govern  himself  and  to  rule  others,  the  slaveholder  begins  life  with  all  the 
qualities  essential  to  the  character  of  a  safe  and  efficient  member  of  society." 

Unfortunately,  however,  Mr.  Jefferson,  himself  not  only  a  Virginian,  but 
also  a  slaveholder,  tells  us  just  the  reverse  of  all  this  in  the  following  passage 
from  his  Notes  on  Virginia : — 

"The  whole  commerce  between  master  and  slave  is  a  perpetual  exercise  of  the  most 
boisterous  passions,  the  most  unremitting  despotism  on  the  one  part,  and  degrading 
submission  on  the  other.  Our  children  see  this,  and  learn  to  imitate  it — for  man  is  an 
imitative  animal ;  this  quality  is  the  germ  of  all  education  in  him ;  from  his  cradle  to 
his  grave,  he  is  learning  to  do  what  he  sees  others  do.  If  a  parent  could  find  no  mo 
tive,  either  in  his  philanthropy  or  his  self-love,  for  restraining  the  intemperance  of 
passion  towards  his  slave,  it  should  always  be  a  sufficient  one  that  his  child  is  present. 
But  generally  it  is  not  sufficient.  The  parent  storms,  the  child  looks  on,  catches  the 
lineaments  of  wrath,  puts  on  the  same  airs  in  the  circle  of  smaller  slaves,  gives  loose 
to  his  worst  passions,  and  thus  nursed,  educated,  and  daily  exercised  in  tyranny,  can 
not  but  be  stamped  with  its  odious  peculiarities.  The  man  must  be  a  prodigy  who  can 
retain  his  manners  and  morals  undepraved  under  such  circumstances." 

Which  of  these  authorities  is  entitled  to  be  believed  our  readers  will  de 
termine  for  themselves.  On  the  one  side  they  have  a  Virginian  of  1776,  a 
lover  of  the  Union,  and  one  who  held  that  God  had  created  all  men  free  and 
equal;  and  on  the  other  a  Virginian  of  1854,  an  active  member  of  the  Pro- 
Slavery  Party,  that  has  for  the  last  thirty  years  governed  the  Union  by  means 
of  threats  that,  if  interfered  with,  they  would  certainly  secede,  and  thus  bring 
about  what  The  Enquirer  is  now  pleased  to  style  "  the  dreadful  contingency  of 
disunion."  On  the  one  side  they  have  the  representative  of  that  Virginia  which 
gave  to  the  Union  its  Washington,  its  Henry,  its  Jefferson,  and  its  Madison, 
and  on  the  other  the  representative  of  the  State  which  has  placed  in  its 
Governor's  chair  Virginians  like  Extra  Billy  Smith — which  gives  John  Tyler 
to  the  Union,  and  aids  in  placing  Franklin  Pierce  in  the  Chief  Magistracy 
to  the  exclusion  of  such  a  Virginian  as  the  gallant  Scott.  Between  the  two, 
there  is  no  great  doubt  which  is  to  be  respected. 

Released  from  the  control  of  their  "conservative"  friends — or  masters — of 
the  South,  who  tax  them  for  the  extension  of  the  area  of  Slavery,  and  then 


37 

vote  for  themselves  and  their  property — and  left  to  tax  themselves  at  their  own 
pleasure  for  the  improvement  of  rivers  and  harbors,  and  the  increase  in  the 
value  of  their  land,  "  what  security  is  there/'  asks  the  anxious  Enquirer — 

"That  the  non-slaveholding  States  would  continue  to  cohere  in  one  political  and 
social  system  ?  The  all-pervading  and  controlling  element  of  Slavery  would  give  unity 
and  consistency  to  the  social  and  political  system  of  the  South.  But  the  Northern 
States  would  be  bound  together  by  no  such  principle  of  union,  and  in  the  absence  of 
the  necessary  centralizing  tendency,  diverse  and  antagonist  interests  would  scatter 
them  asunder,  and,  perchance,  drive  them  into  hostile  conflict.  At  any  rate,  the 
Southern  States,  moving  under  the  impulse  of  one  will,  and  pursuing  a  single  policy, 
would  find  it  no  difficult  task  to  play  off  the  Northern  States  one  against  the  other, 
and  thus  acquire  complete  control  over  their  destinies.  It  is  obvious  to  the  reflecting 
mind,  that  if  the  Northern  States  were  cut  loose  from  the  South,  they  would  be  broken 
up  into  as  many  petty  communities,  or  would  else  be  overwhelmed  in  social  anarchy. 
The  latter  alternative  would,  perhaps,  be  their  more  probable  fate." 

In  reply  to  this,  we  can  assure  our  readers,  North  and  South,  that  in  the 
event  of  dissolution  the  North  would  most  certainly  continue  to  have  the  aid 
of  "  conservative"  Virginia,  and  of  "  the  dignity,  propriety,  and  self-posses 
sion"  which  are  there,  as   The  Enquirer  assures  us,  so  "  characteristic  of  the 
dominant  race."     That  State  is  bound  to  go  with  the  North  and  not  with  the 
South,  and,  therefore,  our  anxious  friends  may  be  quite  relieved  of  apprehen 
sion  in  regard  to  the  "  social  anarchy,"  that  would  result  from  dissolution. 
Of  all  the  States  of  the  Union  Virginia  is  the  one  that  is  most  dependent  upon 
the  protection  afforded  by  the  North  throuyh  the  intervention  of  the  Federal 
Government — and  yet  it  is  the  most  determined  against  permitting  interfer 
ence  with  what  it  calls  freedom  of  trade.     It  has  but  one  branch  of  manufac 
ture  fairly  established  within  its  limits,  and  that  is  of  negroes  for  exportation, 
in  which  it  is  protected  by  an  absolute  prohibition  of  foreign  competition,  by 
aid  of  which  it  sells  a  negro  for  a  thousand  dollars,  while  similar  ones  could 
be  imported  from  the  coast  of  Africa  at  less  than  one-fifth  that  price.     To 
what  extent  that  export  is  carried  on  will  be  shown  by  the  following  figures  : 
In  1830,  the  number  of  negroes  in  the  State  was  469,000,  and  these,  accord 
ing  to  the  usual  rate  of  increase,  should,  by  1840,  have  become  600,000, 
whereas  they  were  only  449,000,  and  the  export  in  that  period  must  there 
fore  have  been  about  150,000.    From  1840  to  1850,  the  increase  was  24,000, 
whereas  it  should  have  been  about  120,000,  and  this  would  give  an  export  of 
about  100,000.    Taking  the  average  of  the  twenty  years  we  obtain  an  annual 
export  of  about  12,000,  and  as  they  are  generally  fed  at  home  until  full  grown, 
we  may,  we  think,  safely  put  them  at  not  less  than  $800  each,  giving  a  total 
product  of  nearly  ten  millions  of  dollars  for  commodities  that  would  not,  under 
absolute  free  trade,  sell  for  more  than  two  millions,  if  even  for  that  amount. 
This  is  to  "  the  Ancient  Dominion"  an  important  branch  of  trade,  and  its 
existence  and  prosperity  are  due  to  her  union  with  the  North.     It  is  with  the 
excess  of  eight  millions  that  she  pays  for  the  iron  that  should  be  manufactured 
at  home,  and  for  the  cloth  that  should  be  bought  with  the  iron.    With  the  disso 
lution  of  the  Union  this  excess,  however,  would  cease  to  exist,  for  among  the 
first  measures  of  a  Southern  Confederacy  would  be  the  reopening  of  ^ the  Afri 
can  slave-trade  for  the  benefit  of  the  planters  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi, 
long  since  tired  of  paying  Virginia  a  thousand  dollars  for  a  negro  that  under 
"  absolute  free  trade"  could  be  bought  in  Africa  for  thirty  or  forty  dollars, 
and  transported  across  the  ocean  for  as  many  more.    What  then  would  be  the 
condition  of  Virginia,  as  a  member  of  a  Southern  Confederacy  ?     Her  land 
is  already  to  so  great  an  extent  exhausted  by  constant  cropping,  and  constant 
export  of  all  its  products,  that  her  own  people  are  flying  from  it,  and  it  is  only 


38 

V 

by  aid  of  Northern  men  and  Northern  labor,  that  it  is  here  and  there  acquir 
ing  value.  Once  separated  from  the  North,  Northern  men  would  cease  to  seek 
her  soil,  and  the  aversion  of  foreigners  to  the  slave  States  is,  as  we  know,  greater 
than  is  that  even  of  our  own  people.  We  have  at  this  moment  before  us  the 
destinations  of  the  passengers  of  the  ship  Universe,  which  arrived  at  this  port 
a  short  time  since,  and  they  afford  on  this  point  such  conclusive  evidence  that 
we  are  induced  to  lay  them  before  our  readers — as  follows  : — 


TO  "THE  HIRELING  STATES." 

1       :] 

TO   "THE  ARISTOCRATIC    STATES." 

Maine  

.           1 

Maryland  

8 

Massachusetts    

.  39 

District  of  Columbia    

1 

Vermont    

.     5 

.Kentucky  

1 

Rhode  Island      

.  17 

Missouri    

O 

Connecticut    

.  25 

Virginia     

o 

New  Jersey    

.  41 

South  Carolina    

1 

Pennsylvania      

.  76 

Georgia     

1 

Ohio      

.  61 

Louisiana  

1 

Indiana      

.     2 

— 

56 

Tntil 

17 

Iowa     

.  10 

California       

.     1 

Total 334  i 

Virginia  obtains  two  and  Pennsylvania  no  less  than  76 !  Why  is  this  ?  Be 
cause  the  former  obtains  its  iron  by  the  indirect  process  of  manufacturing  its 
corn  into  negroes,  and  the  other  by  the  direct  process  of  feeding  its  corn  to 
men  who  mine  ore  and  coal  and  convert  them  into  iron.  Missouri,  with  all 
her  natural  advantages  obtains  two,  and  her  neighbor,  Illinois,  fifty-six,  be 
cause  Missouri  still  permits  men;  women,  and  children  to  be  bought  and  sold, 
and  Illinois  does  not. 

As  a  member  of  a  Southern  Union,  Virginia  could  no  longer  claim  the  aid 
of  any  sort  of  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  her  negroes  would,  of  course,  have  the 
strongest  inducements  to  fly  to  the  North.  Her  whites  would,  therefore,  seek 
to  fly  with  their  property  to  the  South,  where  they  would  be  met  by  cargoes 
of  newly  imported  Africans,  and  the  consequence  would  be  a  depreciation  of 
price  to  an  extent  far  exceeding  anything  ever  known  in  the  history  of  com 
merce.  As  a  member  of  a  Southern  Confederacy  Virginia  would  be  aban 
doned,  her  people  would  be  ruined,  and  her  towns  and  cities  would  pass  out 
of  existence.  Within  a  Northern  Union,  on  the  contrary,  she  might  flourish, 
for  she  would  be  then  employing  her  labor  in  developing  her  great  mineral 
wealth,  and  thus  adding  to  the  value  of  both  labor  and  land.  Then  would  be 
realized  the  earnest  wish  of  Washington,  expressed  in  his  letter  to  La  Fayette, 
in  the  following  words,  referring  to  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  of  the  latter 
in  Cayenne: — 

"Would  to  God  a  like  spirit  might  diffuse  itself  generally  into  the  minds  of  the 
people  of  this  country.  But  I  despair  of  seeing  it.  *  *  *  To  set  the  slaves 
afloat  at  once  would,  I  really  believe,  be  productive  of  much  mischief  and  inconve 
nience  ;  but  by  degrees  it  might,  and  assuredly  ought  to  be  effected ;  and  that,  too,  by 
legislative  authority." 

The  people  of  the  North  would  then  gladly  co-operate  with  Virginia  in 
her  efforts  at  gradually  freeing  herself  from  the  evils  of  Slavery,  and  men  of 
intelligence  and  energy  would  then  seek  the  State  instead  of  flying  from  it  as 
is  now  the  case.  Her  exhausted  lands  would  then  again  be  brought  into  cul 
tivation,  and  then  would  Norfolk  become  a  commercial  city,  which  now  it  is 
not,  nor  can  it  ever  be  while  the  extension  of  the  area  of  Slavery  shall  con- 


39 

tinue  to  be  regarded  as  the  true  policy  of  the  State.  Her  people  would  then 
be  educated,  and  Tlie  Richmond  Whig  would  cease  to  report  such  melan 
choly  facts  as  are  given  in  the  following  passage  taken  from  its  columns : — 

"  The  census  of  1840  reported  58,732  as  the  number  of  whites  over  20  years  of  age 
who  were  unable  to  read,  with  a  white  population  of  779,300.  The  late  census  of  1850 
shows  the  number  to  be  80,000  out  of  a  population  of  897,584.  So  that,  with  an 
increase  of  only  118,234  whites,  we  have  21,268  who  are  unable  to  read  more  than 
the  last  census  indicated." 

Well  may  the  writer  speak  of  this  as  presenting  facts  "humiliating  to  our 
pride,"  and  well  may  he  dwell  on  the  "  deep  mortification"  which,  as  a  Vir 
ginian,  he  feels  in  reflecting  that  if,  in  addition  to  those  who  cannot  read  at 
all,  there  be  added  those  "  who,  although  they  read  a  little,  yet  do  it  so  im 
perfectly  as  to  be  but  little  if  at  all  benefited  by  it,  the  number  will  be  aug 
mented  to  more  than  100,000,"  or  one-fourth  of  the  ichole  white  population 
over  twenty  years  of  age.  As  Americans,  we  are  grieved  to  reflect  that  such 
a  state  of  things  should  exist  in  any  State  of  the  Union,  and  can  readily  ima 
gine  how  great  must  be  the  grief  of  a  Virginian  who  studies  the  fact  that 
great  as  is  now  the  proportion  of  the  absolutely  ignorant,  it  is  likely  at  the 
next  census  to  be  yet  far  greater.  But  in  the  event  of  the  menaced  dissolu 
tion,  with  Virginia  a  Northern  State,  all  would  be  different.  Her  coal  and  her 
iron  ore  would  then  be  wrought,  her  water  powers  would  be  put  to  work,  her 
land  would  become  productive,  her  roads  would  improve  until  she  might  almost 
stand  side  by  side  with  the  young  Indiana,  with  her  1,300  miles  of  railroad 
in  operation,  her  1,592  miles  in  course  of  construction,  and  her  732  miles 
projected  and  in  part  surveyed — and  then  her  schools  would  increase  in  num 
ber  and  improve  in  quality,  and  her  people  would  not  only  read  but  write. 

The  difference  to  Virginia  between  adhesion  to  the  North  or  the  South  is 
the  difference  between  absolute  ruin  on  one  hand  and  high  prosperity  on 
the  other.  Such  being  the  case,  we  cannot  but  hope  that  our  friends  of  Tlit 
Enquirer  will  feel  themselves  relieved  from  all  apprehension  of  the  occurrence 
of  anarchy  in  the  North  as  a  consequence  of  the  want  of  that  portion  of  the 
conservative  element  which  is  now  furnished  by  the  State  they  represent.  Their 
fears  are  groundless.  The  State  that  gave  to  the  nation  Washington,  Jeffer 
son,  and  Madison,  is  not  to  be  separated  from  those  which  furnished  Otis, 
Adams,  Greene,  Hamilton,  and  Franklin.  They  are  destined  to  stand  or  fall 
together,  a  truth  of  which  we  hope  our  Southern  friends  will  now  be  convinced. 
What  States,  then,  will  constitute  a  Southern  Union,  if  Virginia  remain  with 
the  North?  Kentucky  will  not  be  in  it,  for  she  is  a  noble  and  gallant  State, 
whose  feelings  have  always  accorded  far  more  with  the  North  than  with  the 
South.  Several  of  the  reasons  that,  as  we  have  shown,  would  influence  Vir 
ginia,  would  be  equally  operative  with  her ;  and  we  are,  therefore,  entirely 
confident  that  whenever  the  "  dreadful  contingency  of  disunion"  shall  occur, 
the  land  of  Henry  Clay  will  be  found  standing  side  by  side  with  those  States 
with  which,  under  his  lead,  it  so  long  acted.  Which,  then,  will  be  the  fron 
tier  Slave  State?  North  Carolina?  Tennessee?  Neither  the  one  nor  the 
other.  Both  will  keep  company  with  Virginia  and  Kentucky,  and  a  South 
ern  Union  can  embrace  no  State  north  of  South  Carolina  and  Alabama.  Such 
a  Union  would  be  utterly  powerless,  and  well  do  many  of  the  loudest  advo 
cates  of  secession  know  that  such  is  the  fact.  We  need  not,  therefore,  appre 
hend  that  the  South  will  speedily  rush  into  the  alternative  that  she  is  so  fond 
of  threatening  at  every  intimation  that  she  is  not  to  have  her  own  way  in  the 
Government.  The  South  plainly  cannot  afford  to  dissolve  the  Union.  That 
the  North  can,  we  have  already  demonstrated ;  and  if  we  have  succeeded  in 


40 

establishing  in  the  public  mind  the  conviction  of  these  two  facts,  we  have 
done  an  important  thing  towards  disarming  the  slaveholders  of  their  favorite 
weapon  of  legislation,  whenever  they  have  some  repulsive  or  outrageous 
measure  to  force  upon  the  free  States.  When  the  North  shall  scorn  the 
threats  of  disunion  from  the  South,  and  calmly  allow  the  Secessionists  to  go 
the  whole  length  of  their  tether,  these  chronic  threats  of  dissolution  will  quickly 
subside,  and  soon  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  they  should  be,  with  utter  con 
tempt,  both  in  and  out  of  Congress.  When  that  time  shall  arrive,  the  North 
will  not  hesitate  to  consider,  and  to  act  in  reference  to  the  fact  that  the  bene 
fits  of  the  Union,  as  it  now  exists,  enure  to  the  South,  and  that  its  chief 
object,  as  now  managed,  is  the  extension  of  Slavery,  for  the  attainment  of 
which  the  people  of  the  North  are  perpetually  taxed  for  the  purchase  of  slave 
territory,  or  free  territory  that  is  to  be  filled  with  slaves,  while  denied  all  pro 
tection  to  themselves,  whether  for  the  building  of  mills  and  furnaces  or  for 
the  improvement  of  their  rivers  and  harbors.  With  all  this  clearly  felt  and 
understood,  and  with  no  unmeaning  menace  of  disunion  permitted  to  palsy 
the  nerves  of  the  Northern  people,  we  may  look  for  them  to  make  for  them 
selves  another  and  a  very  different  Government  from  that  which  of  late  yeari 
has  been  made  for  them  by  the  southern  men;  who  have  "  obtained  the  mas 
tery  in  Congress,"  and  have  "  so  changed  its  policy,"  that  it  has  "  fostered 
the  interests"  of  those  who  desired  to  buy  bone,  muscle,  and  sinew,  in  the 
form  of  laborers,  at  the  cost  of  those  who  desired  to  sell  their  own  labor  for 
the  benefit  of  themselves,  their  wives,  and  their  children. 


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